By Nisar Ahmed Khan
After years of democratic paralysis across Maharashtra’s urban and rural governance structures, the prolonged electoral stalemate now appears to be nearing resolution — but only under intense judicial pressure.
Millions of residents in India’s second-most populous state remain without elected local representatives, as the vast majority of Municipal Corporations, Zilla Parishads, and Municipal Councils continue functioning under unelected state-appointed administrators. The Supreme Court’s deadline of January 31, 2026 now represents the final opportunity to restore grassroots democracy before constitutional mandates risk being violated beyond repair.
The Unmatched Scale of Democratic Vacuum
The democratic deficit has reached staggering proportions, creating a governance landscape unprecedented in Maharashtra’s history. As of October 2025, all 29 Municipal Corporations — including Mumbai (BMC), Pune, Thane, Nagpur, Nashik, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Navi Mumbai, Kalyan-Dombivli, Solapur, Ichalkaranji, and Jalna — function under administrator rule without any elected bodies. The last elected corporation, Dhule, saw its term expire in December 2023, completing the state’s total administrative takeover.
The crisis extends well beyond the cities, reaching deep into the rural heartlands of governance. Of the state’s 34 Zilla Parishads, 32 are under administrators, with only Bhandara and Gondia retaining elected bodies until May 2027. Similarly, 336 of 351 Panchayat Samitis lack elected representatives. Although the State Election Commission (SEC) has held phased elections for more than 100 smaller Municipal Councils since late 2023, the core institutions that control substantial budgets remain frozen under bureaucratic supervision.
The OBC Reservation Battle: Legal Framework and Political Deadlock
At the heart of this crisis lies the contentious and politically charged issue of Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation. The legal impasse began in March 2021, when the Supreme Court struck down OBC reservations in local body polls, mandating a rigorous “triple test” before such quotas could be reinstated. The test required the state to establish a dedicated commission, collect contemporary empirical data proving backwardness and inadequate political representation of OBCs for each local body, and ensure total reservations for SC, ST, and OBC communities did not breach the 50 percent constitutional ceiling.
In response, Maharashtra constituted the Jayant Kumar Banthia Commission in March 2022 to carry out this data-driven exercise. The commission recommended 27 percent OBC representation within the 50 percent ceiling. However, its report immediately came under legal challenge, plunging the entire electoral process back into uncertainty and leaving the structure of local governance in suspended animation.
Judicial Intervention Forces Action
The breakthrough, when it finally arrived, was driven entirely by judicial intervention. On May 6, 2025, the Supreme Court, emphasizing that “constitutional mandate for democracy at the grassroots level must be respected and ensured,” directed Maharashtra to hold local body elections with OBC reservation fixed at the percentage existing before the Banthia Commission report. The bench of Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh ordered the State
Election Commission to notify polls within four weeks and complete them within four months.
This directive was reinforced on August 4, 2025, when the Supreme Court reaffirmed the 27 percent OBC quota and directed elections under the new ward structure, dismissing petitions challenging the reservation framework. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis hailed the order, stating that it had finally paved the way for conducting local body polls with the 27 percent OBC reservation as it existed prior to the 2021 directive.
Despite this clarity, the SEC failed to meet the prescribed timelines, citing non-availability of sufficient Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), staff shortages, festival schedules, and ongoing delimitation work while seeking further extensions.
September 2025: The Supreme Court’s Final Warning
Judicial patience eventually wore thin. On September 16, 2025, a visibly displeased bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi issued a stern warning, setting an absolute final deadline of January 31, 2026, for completing all local body elections in Maharashtra.
“We are constrained to observe that the SEC has failed to take prompt action for compliance of this Court’s directions,” the bench remarked, making clear that the extension was a “one-time concession” and no further delays would be tolerated.
The Court ordered the delimitation process to be completed by October 31, 2025, and ruled that this exercise could not be used as a pretext for any postponement. The message was unambiguous: January 31, 2026, is the non-negotiable deadline for the return of democratic governance to Maharashtra’s local bodies.
Ward Delimitation: The Race Against Time
As of October 2025, the delimitation process is advancing rapidly across the state in a race to meet the court’s October 31 cutoff. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has finalized its ward boundaries, retaining 227 electoral wards based on the 2017 structure. The SEC approved BMC’s final plan after reviewing hundreds of public submissions.
Similarly, the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation published its final delimitation map, retaining 128 corporators across 32 wards. Other civic bodies are also nearing completion; though new legal challenges continue to arise. On October 16, 2025, the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court issued notices to the state government and SEC over a petition challenging the delimitation in Nagpur Municipal Corporation, alleging arbitrary boundary formation.
Election Timeline and Logistical Challenge
State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare announced in August 2025 that local body elections would be conducted in phases after Diwali, using the July 1, 2025 voter list. The phased approach aims to manage manpower constraints, with polls to Zilla Parishads, Panchayat Samitis, Municipal Councils, and Municipal Corporations held sequentially from October 2025 to January 2026.
The logistical scale is immense. The SEC currently has around 60,000 EVMs, has ordered 50,000 new machines from the Electronics Corporation of India Limited, and is renting 25,000 more from Madhya Pradesh, bringing the total to approximately 135,000–150,000 machines required for the exercise. The SEC has decided against using VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) systems, citing the four-member ward structure’s complexity and time limitations — a decision that opposition parties have criticised.
Mumbai: The Longest Wait in BMC History
Mumbai remains the most powerful symbol of this democratic crisis. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which governs India’s financial capital and manages a budget larger than some states, has not held elections since February 21, 2017. The corporators’ term ended on March 7, 2022, and the city has since been under administrator rule for over three and a half years — the longest such period in BMC’s 141-year history.
If the Supreme Court’s schedule holds, BMC elections are expected by mid-January 2026, finally ending this unprecedented hiatus in the city’s political life.
The Cost of Democratic Suspension
The consequences of prolonged administrator rule have been severe. Without elected representatives, accountability has weakened, and citizen engagement has declined. Former corporators report that civic officials routinely ignore their representations, forcing them to file Right to Information (RTI) requests that often receive delayed or incomplete replies.
“Without corporators, the administration took up infrastructure projects in a haphazard way, leading to loss of public trust,” said Rais Shaikh, former corporator and current MLA, highlighting the governance gaps.
The concentration of power poses another major concern. The state government now directly or indirectly controls not only its own expenditure but also the budgets of all 29 municipal corporations through appointed administrators. This unprecedented centralization of financial authority, without elected oversight, has raised fears that local priorities may be overshadowed by political interests.
The Path Forward and Political Stakes
The road to restoration now hinges entirely on the Supreme Court’s strict timeline. The SEC must complete delimitation by October 31, 2025, resolve all EVM logistics, and conduct elections by January 31, 2026 — a deadline the Court has declared final.
When these elections finally occur, their political impact will be immense. The 2026 BMC polls will mark the first major electoral face-off between the two Shiv Sena factions following the 2022 split. For Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT), retaining Mumbai — the city where the party was born — is critical after recent setbacks in state and national elections. For the BJP, which won 82 seats against the undivided Shiv Sena’s 84 in 2017, capturing India’s wealthiest civic body would signal a decisive political triumph.
Across the state, these polls will also advance gender representation, with more than half of the 34 Zilla Parishads to be headed by women under rotational reservation mandates.
Conclusion: A Deadline Unlike Any Other
Until January 31, 2026, Maharashtra’s local governance remains in suspended animation. The vibrant grassroots democracy envisioned by the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments has, for now, been replaced by technocratic administration — leaving citizens waiting for the day their votes can once again shape the future of their cities, towns, and villages.
The Supreme Court has drawn a constitutional line in the sand. Whether Maharashtra’s political and electoral machinery can restore democratic governance after years of delay now depends on the next three months of intense preparation.
For millions of residents — from the bustling streets of Mumbai and Pune to the rural heartlands of Marathwada and Vidarbha — the wait has already been too long. The clock on grassroots democracy is not just ticking; it has nearly run out.
000
