Voting for 29 municipal corporations across Maharashtra will be held on January 15, with vote counting scheduled for January 16. The State Election Commission has set up nearly 39,000 polling stations for the elections, which will determine the fate of candidates on 2,869 seats.
The 29 municipal corporations include Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Thane, Ulhasnagar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), Pune, Nashik, Nagpur, Jalgaon, Ahmednagar (Ahilyanagar), Kolhapur, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Nanded-Waghala, Malegaon, Latur, Parbhani, Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar City, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Solapur, Amravati, Akola, Mira Bhayandar, Panvel, Chandrapur, Sangli-Mirajpur-Kupwad, Dhule, Ichalkaranji, and Jalna.
Thane is one of the key municipal corporations going to the polls in Maharashtra. It has 131 seats. Last time, Thane witnessed these elections in 2017. Unified Shiv Sena performed exceptionally well in this election by accumulating 67 seats.
What happened in Thane in the 2017 polls?
In Thane, polling took place across 131 seats in 2017.
| Shiv Sena | NCP | BJP | Congress | AIMIM | Independent/Others |
| 67 | 34 | 23 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
Sena split deepens uncertainty in Thane
The political landscape in this round of civic elections has become unusually intricate and difficult to decipher. In several municipal corporations, parties that officially belong to the same alliance have been unable to finalise seat-sharing arrangements and have instead chosen to field rival candidates. This has produced a tangled web of overlapping alliances, informal understandings, so-called “friendly” contests, and multi-cornered battles, significantly increasing the level of uncertainty surrounding the polls.
The situation in Thane is particularly fluid following the split within the Shiv Sena, which dramatically altered the local balance of power. A majority of corporators elected in 2017 have aligned themselves with the Eknath Shinde-led faction. In response, Uddhav Thackeray has joined hands with Raj Thackeray for the elections in Thane. The two leaders also held a joint rally to display their power show.
