Thane civic elections 2026: Voter turnout at 8 per cent till 9.30 am

Thane recorded a slow start to polling on Thursday as voting began for the Thane Municipal Corporation TMC elections 2026 with voter turnout standing at 8 per cent till 930 am according to civic officialsPolling underway across 29 municipal corporationsPolling is underway across 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra marking the end of an intense campaign and setting the stage for a decisive political contest in key urban centres including Mumbai Pune Nashik Nagpur Navi Mumbai Thane and PimpriChinchwadMahayuti alliance contests civic polls togetherThe Bharatiya Janata Party BJP and the Shiv Sena are contesting the civic elections together under the Mahayuti banner except in Pune while the Nationalist Congress Party NCP is contesting independently in most municipal corporationsHowever in Pune and PimpriChinchwad both factions of the NCP have come together and are contesting on a joint manifestoMumbai and Pune emerge as key battlegroundsThe main political battle remains centred on Mumbai and Pune In Mumbai the BJPled Mahayuti is facing the united Thackeray camp after Raj Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray joined hands ahead of the civic polls on the issue of the Marathi Manus The contest is crucial as it involves control of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC the countryrsquos richest civic body The last BMC elections were held in 2017Political realignment ahead of Pune civic pollsIn Pune a significant political realignment took place ahead of the Pune Municipal Corporation PMC elections with both factions of the NCP coming together following the partyrsquos split in 2023 Ajit Pawar reunited with Sharad Pawar to contest against NDA ally BJP in Pune Meanwhile the Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde opted to contest independently after failing to finalise a seatsharing arrangement with the BJPVoter strength candidates and polling centresAccording to the State Election Commission a total of 348 crore voters are eligible to cast their ballots to decide the fate of 15908 candidates contesting 2869 seats across 893 wards in 29 municipal corporations As many as 39092 polling centres have been set up across the statePolling schedule and counting datePolling is being conducted on January 15 from 730 am to 530 pm with counting of votes scheduled for Friday January 16The State Election Commission announced the election programme for the 29 municipal corporations on December 15 2025 Accordingly voting is being held for the municipal corporations of Brihanmumbai Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Navi Mumbai VasaiVirar Kolhapur KalyanDombivli Thane Ulhasnagar Nashik Pune PimpriChinchwad Solapur Akola Amravati Nagpur Chandrapur Latur Parbhani BhiwandiNizampur Malegaon Panvel MiraBhayandar NandedWaghala SangliMirajKupwad Jalgaon Dhule Ahilyanagar Ichalkaranji and JalnaEVM deployment across MaharashtraThe Election Commission said adequate Electronic Voting Machines EVMs have been arranged for the polls including 43958 control units and 87916 ballot units For the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation alone 11349 control units and 22698 ballot units have been deployedMultimember ward system in most civic bodiesExcept for Brihanmumbai elections in the remaining 28 municipal corporations are being conducted under the multimember ward system In Brihanmumbai where only one member is elected from each ward voters cast a single vote In the other corporations wards generally have four seats though some have three or five seats Accordingly voters in these areas are required to cast between three and five votes as per State Election Commission guidelines