Maharashtra local bodies results: BJP alliance begins well with Mahayuti, but then comes Baramati surprise

Maharashtra local body elections 2025 are slowly bringing a change in the political environment, as it has been seen from initial trends that Mahayuti, an alliance of main BJP, is leading with a substantial margin in forming local bodies such as nagar panchayat.

As the polling contest is largely seen as the prelude to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Elections, which are to take place next month, the counting of the 286 municipal councils and nagar panchayats began at 10 am this morning.

Trends out; BJP leads in Maharshtra

Prliminary trends suggest that the BJP has appeared as the single-largest party in the civic body elections, leading in more than a hundred seats of the President of the Municipal Councils. This, combined with the performance of alliance partners Shiv Sena, led by Eknath Shinde, and the Nationalist Congress Party, makes it clear that Mahayuti is strong in the semi-urban and rural areas of Maharashtra.

Mahayuti was leading by a margin of 190 local bodies till midday, while Mahavikas Aghadi, consisting of Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), and NCP (Sharad Pawar Group), was lagging with a lead of less than 50 local bodies.

Again, the BJP has proved its worth as a well-organised party at grass-roots levels, and this is achieved barely a year after their massive victory at the Maharashtra Assembly election of 2024.

Baramati: NCP is holding, but margin thin

Being a politically significant area, Baramati experienced the beginning of the elections for seats in the municipal council, where some seats were won by the NCP, representing the entry of the Pawar faction in this election.

The NCP President of Baramati city, Jai Patil, won his fourth consecutive term as President by a very close margin of victory of just 200 votes, which shows that there has been some tough competition in this election compared to the earlier ones.

“Clearly, the fact that Baramati have changed sides and are now supporting the NCP suggests that while the influence of the BJP is growing across the state, there are definitely strong pockets of loyalty towards the established sites of power in the state of Maharashtra”

However, the BJP further increased its lead and was leading in the majority of the seats of the Badlapur Municipal Council. Candidates of the Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) won key appointments in Palghar and Dahanu. Worth mentioning is the loss faced by the BJP in the Uran region with Bhavna Ghanekar being made the head of the municipal council. Alarming are reports in the matter for the current government since Ghanekar is reportedly close to NCP.

In certain assembly segments, kin of certain incumbents belonging to BJP, as well as supporting parties, have initially led, thus asserting that local connections have been of great importance in these local elections.

Violence, allegations, security marred election polls

Although the voting process was quite peaceful, some incidents occurred, which raised some alarm.

In Ambernath, there was a lathi charge conducted by the police in connection with clashes between different groups, and more than 200 women were arrested for the offence of impersonation, an act the women denied. In the city of Nanded, cases were filed for the disbursement of money to vitiate polling. There were instances of clashes between supporters of BJP, Congress, and Shiv Sena.

Officials from the electoral body stated that, with enhanced security, nothing much went wrong to affect the voting exercise.

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Why These Findings are Important

The local body election are taking place after a period of nearly a decade. Such elections are considered and treated as the political barometer of the semi-urban and rural areas of Maharashtra. They are acting as dress rehearsals for BMC and municipal corporation elections. Here, it is going to be high stakes because of the administration and funds of the urban bodies being on stake. In spite of that, opposition from the opposition regarding governance matters and the halt in the distribution of social security benefits, it seems that the collective effort of all the election campaigns by Mahayuti and through the chief minister and two deputy chief ministers of Mahayuti that are resonating with people. The other side has had an uneven mobilization of their support base and certain weaknesses in the coordination of their efforts.

But with the counting of votes still in progress, the ultimate result is likely to throw more light into how great the victory achieved by the BJP alliance is. Going by the trends so far, there is one critical takeaway from the entire experience – that Mahayuti has finally got its roots established in the grassroot level of politics, despite the presence of a stronghold such as Baramati. For all of them, the heavy lifting is yet to begin, and that will happen when the campaign moves to Mumbai.

FOR MORE: https://civiclens.in/category/politics-news-today-india/