Pune PMC Election Result 2026 Highlights: BJP inflicts massive defeat on Ajit Pawar-led NCP in Pune, Pimpri

Despite the aggressive campaigning by NCP national president Ajit Pawar, the BJP on Friday romped home in Pimpri-Chinchwad with another clear majority as 84 of its candidates won in the civic polls. This is the second time since the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation came into being in 1986, the BJP has ascended the PCMC throne.

As the counting of votes took off in the morning at eight centres, the Ajit Pawar-led NCP was leading in the postal ballots. However, after the postal ballot count got over, the BJP took over. It lead from the front and there was no looking back as the saffron party grabbed as many a 84 seats, the highest in the history of PCMC. Earlier, in 2017 too, it secured the highest number of 78 wards.

The PCMC elections saw bigwigs from both BJP and NCP falling by the wayside. Among them included former mayor Mai Dhore, standing committee chairperson Seema Sawale of NCP, Vilas Medigiri of BJP, who is also a standing committee chairman, Moreshwar Shedge, district secretary of the party and ex-corporator, PCMC House leader Namdev Dhake of

Walhekarwadi of BJP.

The NCP campaigning was led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar. He aggressively campaigned against the BJP rule for five years, targeting primarily BJP MLA Mahesh Landge. Pawar alleged that there was massive corruption in PCMC during BJP rule and Landge had spearheaded that corruption. Pawar said NCP wanted to slay the demon of corruption and restore the glory of the industrial city.

To capture PCMC, which his party had ruled for over two decades, Ajit Pawar even forged an alliance with Sharad Pawar-led NCP. NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar and party MP Amol Kolhe also campaigned for the candidates of the two parties. At every press conference and rally, Ajit Pawar launched verbal attack on BJP and promised the voters that he would stop the loot of the taxpayers money.

However, nothing worked as both the NCPs secured the same number of seat which the undivided NCP had won in 2017.

While Ajit Pawar was firing salvos at BJP, the latter initially refused to get into a verbal duel with him. However, Landge then challenged Ajit Pawar to provide evidence regarding allegations of corruption. He hit back, saying Ajit Pawar and his party did little to push the development of Pimpri-Chinchwad. “The real development of Pimpri-Chinchwad happened only after BJP came to power,” he said.

Reacting to the party’s spectacular performance, BJP Pimpri-Chinchwad unit chief Shatrughan Kate told The Indian Express, “I had said that we will win 80 seats. However, voters have belied my predictions. They have given more seats than we expected. It only reflects the voters' confidence in our ability to push the development of Pimpri-Chinchwad. Our teamwork and meticulous planning worked in our favour.”

Stating that they fought the election only on development plank, Kate said, “Our campaign was centered only on the plank of development. This is because our five-year term only saw huge amount of development. We brought in new projects and we started the stalled projects. Under the able leadership of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, we could get sanctions to project which were either stalled by our opponents during their tenure. People saw how we slogged for their welfare and development of the town. And therefore this vote of the citizens is for our development.”

Raju Durge, district general secretary, said, “We were confident that we would secure a big win and we are happy it has finally happened. I will credit this victory to entire rank and file of the BJP, our local leadership and our state leadership.”

Durge said voters did not fell prey to any narrative that was pushed by some parties. “People gave their preference to BJP because of the way we went about implementing the development projects. Be it Pune Metro project, the 12.5 per cent return on land acquired, the decision to scrap penalty tax, setting up police commissionerate and court building, all this development has happened during the BJP rule. We pushed for this development at a faster rate. People liked what we did and they voted en masse for us,” he said.

Durge said Fadnavis held only a solitary rally in Pimpri-Chinchwad. “At the rally, he guided us how to approach the elections. And we should flag only the development agenda,” he said.

Yogesh Behl, president of the Pimpri-Chinchwad unit of NCP, said, “We were expecting 50 of our candidates will win. The result is below our expectation. We will have to analyse what went wrong. We were expecting better result than this. Our national president Ajit Pawar had led our campaign aggressively. The voters had responded to it and therefore we will have to analyse were we fell short.”

The Maharashtra Election Commission is yet to release an official statement on all the results. An official said the final results may be announced late in the night.

With many new faces making it to the elected body of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), few bigwigs — including former deputy mayor Ulhas Bagul of Shiv Sena, city NCP chief Subhash Jagtap, Ashok Harnawal, Shankar Kemse and Ashwini Kadam of NCP, Avinash Bagwe of Congress, Abhijeet Shivarkar and Dhanraj Ghogare of BJP — have missed out this time around.

Bagul won the PMC elections six times consecutively in the past and was with Congress before joining the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena. He was defeated by BJP candidate Mahesh Wabale. “It is the victory of money power over development work in the Sahakarnagar-Padmavati area,” Bagul said after his defeat.

He said that it was only on the basis of development he had been elected six times in the past but this election development work did not matter much as the rivals manage to woo voters with other promises. “There was wrong use of power by the rivals. They adopted all means to win the election,” said Bagul.

City NCP chief Subhash Jagtap met defeat at the hands of newcomer Veena Ghosh of BJP. Jagtap’s defeat registered a consecutive loss for him in the civic polls. Read more

Across the state, the BJP on Friday underlined its position of pre-eminence in Maharashtra politics, emerging as the single-largest party in 19 of the 29 municipal corporations or almost two-thirds that went to polls the day before. In the process, the party surpassed its 2017 record of winning 15 municipal corporations. The BJP coasted to victory in Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Sangli, Nashik, Akola, Dhule, Jalgaon, Solapur, Ulhasnagar, Ichalkaranji, Jalna, Nanded, Kalyan-Dombivali, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Navi Mumbai, Mira-Bhayander, and Kolhapur. It finished either second or third in 10 municipal corporations, including Thane, Chandrapur, Malegaon, Ahilyanagar, Vasai-Virar, Bhiwandi, Parbhani, Latur, Panvel, and Amravati.

Celebrations have erupted in Pune as the BJP has gained massive lead in PMC elections. (Express photo by Arul Horizon)

After the fourth round of vote counting, NCP candidate Sonali Vanraj Andekar, who contested election from jail, has taken the lead in ward number 23 (b) in Pune, by securing 8,316 votes. Sonali is ahead of Pratibha Ravindra Dhangekar of the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde), who has secured 7,407 votes so far.

Chandan Haygunde reports

Responding to BJP's lead in Maharashtra civic polls, AIMIM leader Waris Pathan says, "According to the updates we have received so far, we have already won in five places... We are also leading in a few other places, and we sincerely hope that by evening, we will achieve more success. This is a victory of development. This is the result of the hard work put in by our party president, Asaduddin Owaisi, and the love and support shown by the people."

Meanwhile, across Maharashtra, the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena appear to be heading for a victory. As vote counting is underway, Mahayuti constituents have taken a lead in over 1,300 seats, while MVA allies are struggling with a paltry lead in just 171 seats.

In the PCMC polls, BJP leads in 84 seats, NCP in 35 seats