Planning to hold Maharashtra civic elections after Diwali, VVPAT machines to stay off: state poll chief Dinesh Waghmare

Indian Express

4 days ago

Amidst speculations about the local self-government body elections in Maharashtra, State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare Tuesday indicated that the polls will be held in November-December. At the same time, the State Election Commission has also ruled out the possibility of the use of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines, drawing flak from the Opposition.
In Maharashtra, currently, as many as 29 municipal corporations have been run by administrators for the last three years.
'We are exploring the possibility of holding the elections from October end. You can say that the elections will be held in November-January,' Waghmare told The Indian Express.
Waghmare said they were planning to hold the Maharashtra local body elections after Diwali. 'We have not declared the elections, but it would be held from the end of October to December,' he said.
Waghmare said VVPAT machines will not be used in the civic and local self-government body polls. 'In the past, VVPAT machines were not used in the local self government body polls. This time too, they will not be used,' he said.
Meanwhile, Waghmare said the voters' list of July 2025 will serve as the basis for the Maharashtra local self-government body polls. He said the four-member ward structure will be implemented as in the last elections.
SEC sources said there will be no change in the reservations, including those of SC-ST and OBCs.
Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sushma Andhare said, 'If VVPAT machines are not used in local self-government body polls, then it raises serious issues of transparency of the elections. We will be forced to approach the courts if the machines are not used'.
Congress MLA Vijay Wadettiwar, too, questioned the logic behind not using the VVPAT machines in local self-government body polls.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sarang Kamtekar said both Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) elections have not been held since 2022.
'There is a pressing need to have elected bodies in place. SEC's move to hold elections after Diwali could be because people would be busy in celebrations, and then it could throw up the possibility of less voter turnout. It looks like the elections will be held in a phased manner in November-December, and could also be held in January,' said Kamtekar.
Among the civic bodies waiting for polls are the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Navi Mumbai, Kolhapur, Dombivli, Kalyan, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, and Vasai-Virar.
In March, SEC had asked the state government to begin the delimitation exercise of wards.
The state poll body took action after the Supreme Court directed it to notify the local self-government body polls within four weeks.
The top court also asked the Maharashtra State Election Commission to maintain the status quo related to the OBC reservation of 27 per cent.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
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