Archives for January 2026

Mumbai: Voting in 29 municipal corporations across Maharashtra began on Thursday morning with spotlight on Mumbai, where the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance is locked in an intense battle with the reunited Thackeray cousins for control of India’s largest and richest civic body.

Polling for 2,869 seats spread across 893 wards in these municipal corporations began amid tight security at 7.30 am and will conclude at 5.30 pm. A total of 3.48 crore voters are eligible to decide the fate of 15,931 candidates.

In the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), whose annual budget is over Rs 74, 400 crore, 1,700 candidates are vying for 227 seats in elections being held after nine years, after a four-year delay. More than 25,000 police personnel have been deployed across Mumbai to oversee elections.

Except for Mumbai, the other urban bodies have multi-member wards. Vote count will take place on January 16.

These are the first BMC polls since the 2022 split in the Shiv Sena when Eknath Shinde, now Deputy Chief Minister, broke away with a majority of the party’s MLAs and allied with the BJP to become the chief minister.

The undivided Shiv Sena held sway over India’s richest civic body for 25 years (1997-2022).

In a significant political turn of events ahead of the elections, estranged cousins Uddhav and Raj Thackeray, who head Shiv Sena (UBT) and MNS, respectively, reunited last month after two decades in their bid to consolidate Marathi votes even as rival NCP factions forged a local alliance in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.

The Congress, once a formidable political force in Maharashtra, has asserted its presence in Mumbai by stepping out of the shadow of its Maha Vikas Aghadi allies – Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP).

The grand old party has joined hands with Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) and the Rashtriya Samaj Paksh in the state capital.

Elections to the 29 municipal corporations are being held after a gap of several years, with terms of most of them having ended between 2020 and 2023. Of these, nine fall in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), the most urbanised belt in India.

Voting is underway in the following municipal corporations: Mumbai, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Solapur, Amravati, Akola, Nashik, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, Ulhasnagar, Thane, Chandrapur, Parbhani, Mira-Bhayandar, Nanded-Waghala, Panvel, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Latur, Malegaon, Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad, Jalgaon, Ahilyanagar, Dhule, Jalna and Ichalkaranji.

Bengaluru: A search conducted by Lokayukta police on the directions of B Veerappa have exposed an alleged scam involving the illegal transfer of government land worth around ₹200 crore in Nagamangala taluk of Mandya district, officials said.

According to The New Indian Express, Nagamangala taluk office allegedly forged, tampered with and fabricated documents to transfer about 320 acres of government gomal land to private individuals under the pretext of allotments through the Bagair Hukum Committee (BHC).

Acting on a tip-off about the racket involved in usurping the gomal land, the Upa Lokayukta issued warrants on Tuesday to conduct searches at seven places, including the residences of the persons involved, the government guest house, a hotel and the taluk office in Nagamangala, the assembly segment represented by Agriculture Minister N Cheluvarayaswamy.

Following the recovery of incriminating documents, a complaint was filed by the Lokayukta police, based on which Nagamangala police registered a First Information Report (FIR) citing criminal conspiracy, cheating, dishonesty, tampering, fraudulently using forged documents, theft and criminal breach of trust.

Five officials of the land records branch were arrested. They have been identified as second division assistants Satish H V and Gurumurthy, shirastedars Ravishankara and Umesh, and Darakastu village assistant S Yogesh.

“The act of the officials shocks the consciousness of this authority,” said Upa Lokayukta Justice Veerappa.

A statement from the Lokayukta office said that prima facie, it was found that the accused fabricated documents, such as Saguvali Chit, grant ledgers and other land records were created in the Darakastu land records section to illegally transfer gomal land in villages including H N Kavalu, Chikkajataka, Doddajataka and Karadahalli in Nagamangala taluk.

Applications seeking grant of land were found in the car belonging to village assistant Yogesh. When the Lokayukta police, headed by Superintendent of Police Suresh Babu, questioned Yogesh, he revealed that records room staffers Vijay Kumar, Satish and Yashavanth, along with deed writer Chinnaswamy, were diverting government land since 2020.

The seized records disclosed that entries in the land grant ledger had been tampered with to add new names. While BHC rules allow a maximum allotment of 4 acres and 38 guntas per beneficiary, records showed that 9 acres and 27 guntas were allotted to one Prakrul Khan and 11 acres and 23 guntas to Kaleem Mulla. However, these entries are not found in the original records kept in the records room, where the search was conducted.