While the State Election Commission’s (SEC) first draft of the voter list for the upcoming Mumbai civic polls shows an overall increase of 12.67 per cent in the electorate since 2017—the year the last civic elections were held—a closer look reveals that four of the 227 corporator wards have recorded a rise of more than 50 per cent in voter numbers. These wards—48, 33, 163 and 157—fall under the Assembly constituencies of Malad and Kurla, which largely house working-class, lower-income groups hailing from minority communities.
The data also shows that Ward No. 33 in Malad’s Madh, adjoining the Malvani area, has recorded the second-highest rise in voter numbers at 54.1 per cent. Voter numbers have risen from 25,590 in 2017 to 39,424 in 2025. The last sitting corporator from this ward was Virendra Choudhary of the Congress.
Over the past three years, the Malad and Malvani areas have been witnessing a rise in communal tension over the issue of alleged infiltration of Rohingya and Bangladeshis. Cabinet minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the guardian minister of Mumbai, and Aslam Shaikh, the Malad MLA from Congress, have been fighting tooth and nail over this issue.
When The Indian Express contacted Shaikh, he remained unavailable for comments. However, a senior member from his office said that the SEC numbers were incorrect and need to be re-evaluated.
“In 2019, there were 2.97 lakh voters; in 2024, there were 3.58 lakh voters, which shows that there has been a rise of only 20 per cent in six years. All the voters are genuine and none of them are illegal immigrants. Earlier, many of the old residents did not have their names enrolled in the voter list. Over the past few years, we have been carrying out campaigns every three months to ensure everybody is enrolled. This factor has also led to an increase in voter numbers,” the member from Shaikh’s office told the Express.
Meanwhile, Lodha said, “There has been a systemic approach through which illegal immigrants are being given legal documents to ensure their name is enrolled in the electoral list. This pattern has been consistently implemented for the last many years and we have been raising our voices deliberately against it.”
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In the 2024 Assembly elections, the BJP’s Vinod Shelar contested against Shaikh and lost by a narrow margin of 6,000 plus votes. Shaikh went on to become a four-time MLA from the constituency.
“The Malad constituency has 24 rounds of counting. On counting day, I was leading by 16,000 votes till the 16th round, after which my lead started to reduce. I was defeated by 6,000-plus votes in the end. The wards 33, 34, and 48 were taken for counting in the final phases, and that is where the entire ratio changed. This pattern clearly shows that local voter numbers are being manipulated to benefit one politician’s voter base,” Shelar alleged.
Similar spike in central Mumbai wards
Besides Malad, Ward No. 157 and Ward No. 163 in central Mumbai’s Kurla and Chandivali have also shown a rise in voter numbers by above 50 per cent. Ward No. 163 has shown a 51.8 per cent rise in voter numbers, taking the total number from 30,926 in 2017 to 46,941 now. Similarly, Ward No. 157 recorded an increase in vote numbers by 50.8 per cent, taking the overall voter count to 57,612 this year from 38,198 in 2017. These two constituencies fall under the Kurla area under the Chandivali constituency and largely house lower-income groups and informal housing units.
Dilip Lande, the Shiv Sena MLA from Chandivali, was the last sitting corporator from Ward No. 163, and Sena’s Akansha Shetye served as the last sitting corporator from Ward No. 157. Speaking to Express, Lande said that the voter numbers appear inflated as the actual number of voters is lesser.
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“The election officers have mixed the voters’ data related to Ward No. 163 with the adjoining wards of 164 and 165. Due to this, the number of voters has automatically increased due to repeated entries. I have written a letter to the SEC to ensure that this is changed in the final draft,” Lande added.
Naseem Khan, the former Chandivali MLA, who also contested from this constituency in 2019 and 2024, said, “Even though there has been an issue of mixing up of voters’ data, suspicion still arises on how the lists were prepared in the first place. Did the SEC officials not visit the wards? Or was it a deliberate approach to inflate the number of voters? I have already filed my objection with the SEC, asking them to look into this issue more seriously.”
Furthermore, the data shows that four wards—32 (Malad), 25 (Thakur Village-Kandivali), 21 (Dahanukarwadi-Kandivali) and 134 (Govandi)—have recorded a rise in voter numbers by over 40 per cent. In addition, 17 wards have registered increases above 30 per cent, while 39 wards have recorded rises above 20 per cent.
Wards showing a dip in numbers
The data also shows that 24 of the 227 municipal wards have recorded a decline in voter numbers. Of these, 10 are in Mumbai’s suburban belt. Usually, electoral wards in the island city registered dips in voter numbers, as many residents migrated to the suburbs due to the redevelopment of several century-old residential buildings over the past decade.
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Some of the suburban wards where voter numbers have reduced include Ward No.28 (Kandivali East), No.13 (Borivali), No.57 (Goregaon), No.64 (Andheri West), No.100 (Khar) and No.102 (Bandra).
Speaking to The Indian Express, Atul Bhatkhalkar, the BJP corporator from Kandivali, said, “The wards that are showing a dip in numbers in the suburbs mainly comprise slum areas. For example, Ward No.28 comprises informal housing, so the people from here usually migrate to other places by renting out their chawls. These slums will soon be taken up for redevelopment under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), and after that, the number of voters will again increase.”
An expert pointed out that the dip in numbers is mainly due to the redevelopment boom in housing societies in the suburbs. “Earlier, after the real estate boom started in the island city, people from Matunga, Sion, Dadar, and Parel shifted to suburban areas like Vile Parle, Andheri, Goregaon, and Kandivali. Now, these suburban areas are seeing a real estate churn, especially in the past few years after infrastructure projects like the Metro became operational. Now, the people who used to live in the suburbs are relocating to Mira Bhayander, Kalyan and Palghar,” Dr Surendra Jondhale, former politics professor from Mumbai University, told The Indian Express.
“This churn is pretty normal when a particular section of a city reaches its saturation point. We have seen this pattern in Pune and New York earlier. The same is happening in Mumbai which means that in a way the city is expanding,” Jondhale said.
