Maharashtra Civic Polls: Which Party Dominated Last Elections

After years of waiting, 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra are going to elect their mayors in elections scheduled for January 15, 2026. These include two newly-created corporations in Jalna and Ichalkaranji.

Elections for 27 other corporations were held on different dates between 2015 and 2018, according to the State Election Commission.

Elections for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which governs India's financial capital Mumbai and 17 other major cities, were last held in 2017. Five municipal corporations, including Vasai Virar, Kolhapur, Aurangabad, Navi Mumbai, and Kalyan Dombivali, went to elections in 2015, while four others - Dhule, Jalgaon, Ahmednagar, Sangli Miraj Kupwad - had elected their mayors in 2018.

Elections in many of these corporations were delayed by two to three years due to legal battles and are run by bureaucrats.

Who Dominated The Last Elections

The last elections in their municipal corporations were largely dominated by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its then-united alliance partner Shiv Sena. The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance formed a government in 15 municipal corporations, including in Mumbai and Thane.

On its own, the BJP had secured a majority in 13 corporations, including Pune, Jalgaon, Mira-Bhayandar, Nagpur, and Pimpri Chinchwad. Shiv Sena had achieved a majority in its stronghold, Thane. In Mumbai, they ruled as partners till the tenure ended in 2022.

The Congress party had secured a majority in Bhiwandi Nizampur and Nanded Waghala, while then united Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) hadn't won a single municipal corporation on its own.

Since then, the Shiv Sena and the NCP have split into two.

In the recently concluded elections for 299 municipal councils and nagar panchayats, the BJP emerged as the largest party, while Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena finished second. The opposition alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won only 52 seats.