Fadnavis says Mahayuti to contest local body polls together, opposition doubts over govt role

“We welcome the Supreme Court decision wholeheartedly. We are going to request the state election commission to immediately begin the preparations. This election will have the OBC reservation as per the pre-2022 elections which means there will be no cut to the OBC reservation,” said Fadnavis.

While opposition parties too welcomed the decision, they sounded a cautionary note. “The Supreme Court verdict has cleared the path to hold elections. But the state government should not delay it by giving any excuse. The decentralisation of power is a key, but the BJP wanted to centralise the power and hence they wanted to delay the elections. Now the supreme court ensured that decentralisation of power takes place,” said Maharashtra Congress chief Harshvardhan Sapkal.

In Maharashtra, the local body polls will be akin to a mini-assembly poll. In urban areas, out of 29 total municipal corporations (Jalna and Ichalkaranji newly formed), all currently are run by administrators and are without an elected body. The state has a total of 248 municipal councils and all have administrators.

In rural Maharashtra, out of Total 34 Zilla Parishads, 32 have administrators, except for Bhandara and Gondia whose term will end in May 2027. In case of panchayat samitis, out of a total 351 panchayat samitis, 336 have administrators where elections will be held.

Sources within the state election commission said that the official comment can be made only after the receipt of the written copy of the order. “We will move as per the orders of the supreme court. Once we get the written copy of the order, we will start moving on to the next step,” said an official from the state election commission.

Opposition Nationalist Congress Party (SP) state president Jayant Patil said that even though these elections will be held subject to the final order of the Supreme Court regarding OBC reservation, the elections are necessary for workers of all political parties in state. “I thank the Supreme Court of the country on behalf of our party for ordering these elections, which are important for the formation of a new leadership and keeping democracy alive, even after a delay of 3 years. The Supreme Court, while giving its order, has allowed the Election Commission to extend the deadline for holding the elections if it deems necessary. We hope that the state government will not try to push through the Election Commission’s efforts to hold the elections,” he said.

Senior OBC leader from ruling NCP, Chhagan Bhujbal said that the Banthia commission report of 2022 had reduced the OBC reservation as it did not collect the data in appropriate manner. “The supreme court decision has ensured that the political reservation of OBCs remains the same. We approached the court for this and have succeeded in it,” said Bhujbal.

Among the most bitter electoral clashes coming up in the local body polls will be in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) where Shiv sena (UBT) led by Uddhav Thackeray will be battling to keep its power intact against the ruling BJP and Eknath Shinde led Shiv Sena.

While the SC on May 6 (Tuesday) directed the state government to hold local body elections in the next six months, former corporators maintained that the SC’s direction doesn’t guarantee a seamless election at the earliest.

“The SC in its order has given four weeks to the state government to file an affidavit declaring how they are going to hold the elections. Whether the number of seats will be 227 or the state government will increase them following delimitation of boundaries.

The actual picture of timeline will be clear only after the state government takes note of SC’s order and submits the affidavit on time,” Kishori Pednekar, former Mumbai Mayor and corporator from Shiv Sena (UBT) told the Indian Express. Pednekar was the last outgoing Mayor in the Mumbai civic body after the council of elected body dissolved in 2022 following deferment of state elections.

Former congress corporator Asif Zakaria told the Indian Express that the SC or Bombay High Court (HC) had never prevented the state government from holding an election. However, it was due to their unwillingness to hold polls that local bodies and Zilla Parishads in Maharashtra are running without an elected representative.

“Even in the past, the courts of law never stopped the state from holding elections in the state. The present government was only delaying it. The government rules state that after every 10 years, delimitation of wards needs to be carried out. Now what if the current government states that they will carry out delimitation of boundaries – this will again push the election process by at least six months. Now everything depends on the state government on whether they want to do elections seriously or not,” Zakaria said.

Meanwhile, Vinod Mishra, former corporator and group leader in BMC from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said, “The proposal of delimitation of ward boundaries in Mumbai came during the Uddhav Thackeray led government in 2021 which the BJP had opposed. The government’s rule states that delimitation of ward boundaries can happen only after a national census is conducted. Since 2011, no census has been carried out, therefore, there’s hardly any chance of doing fresh delimitation of wards as the number of seats are going to stay 227.”