BMC Election Update: 167 Nominations Rejected Ahead of January Polls

BMC Election Nomination Status

On January 15, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections will take place, and during the scrutiny of nomination papers on Wednesday, 167 out of 2,516 submissions were rejected, as reported by municipal officials. A total of 2,516 nomination forms were examined on December 31, with 2,231 deemed valid.

The highest number of rejections, totaling 34, occurred at the S-Ward election officer's office, where 85 forms were submitted. Additionally, from the M East-M West election officer's office, 23 out of 141 nomination papers were rejected.

Congress's Participation in the Elections

The Congress party is set to contest the municipal elections on January 15 across 528 seats in Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, and Pimpri-Chinchwad. This marks the first time since 1999 that Congress will independently contest such a significant number of municipal seats without forming alliances with major partners, including Uddhav Thackeray's faction of Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party.

BJP's Candidate List and Strategy

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its initial list of 66 candidates for the upcoming BMC elections scheduled for January. The saffron party, which is leading the Mahayuti alliance, is buoyed by its recent successes in municipal council and panchayat elections and aims to replicate that performance in the BMC polls.

BJP is contesting the BMC elections in alliance with Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's faction of Shiv Sena. Although the two parties have yet to announce a seat-sharing agreement, sources previously indicated that BJP plans to contest 140 of the 227 BMC seats, while Shinde's faction will run for 87 seats.