The much-anticipated local body elections in Maharashtra will be held in phases, with the electoral process set to begin after Diwali, State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare said on Tuesday.
Waghmare told reporters in Nashik that the sequence of polling would be decided later, but the process was expected to start at the end of October and conclude by late December or mid-January 2026. He said holding all elections simultaneously would cause major human resource constraints, prompting a phased approach.
The announcement follows a Supreme Court order on Monday that cleared the way for polls to be conducted with a 27% quota for Other Backwards Classes (OBCs) and based on the 2017 ward boundaries. Waghmare confirmed that reservations for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) would remain fixed, while a lottery system would be used for OBC reservations, as in previous elections.
Polls are due for zilla parishads, panchayat samitis, nagar parishads and municipal corporations, some of which have not seen elections since 2017. The Supreme Court has directed that the process be completed within four months.
"We will ensure that the process to hold elections to local autonomous bodies will tentatively begin from the end of October, post-Diwali, in a staggered manner," Waghmare said. "The same principle for OBC reservations was applied in the previous elections and will be continued this time as well."
He said around 8,705 control units and more than 17,000 voting machines would be used, but Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines would not be deployed. The elections will be conducted using the voters’ list as of July 1, 2025.
Waghmare added that work to finalise ward boundaries was already underway, along with preparations for personnel and technical infrastructure. The Nashik division, he said, has 50.45 lakh voters and 4,982 polling stations.
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