NEW DELHI: Elections to 29 municipal corporations across Maharashtra, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), will be held on January 15, the Maharashtra State Election Commission said on Tuesday.Counting of votes and declaration of results will take place on January 16, the commission added.Scrutiny of papers will be done on December 31 and January 2 will be the last date of withdrawal of nominations, he said.Symbol allocation and final list of candidates will be published on January 3. Polling in the 29 municipal corporations spread across Maharashtra will take place on January 15 and votes will be counted the next day, said Waghmare.He said these 29 civic bodies, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), have 2,869 seats on offer and 3.48 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in these major urban centres of the state.The prominent civic bodies going to polls include Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. The announcement comes after a prolonged delay in civic elections across the state, including the high-profile BMC polls, which have been pending for more than two years following the expiry of the elected bodies’ terms. The delay was primarily due to legal proceedings and uncertainty over the implementation of the OBC reservation and ward delimitation. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, India’s richest civic body, has been under administrator rule since March 2022. Civic bodies across Maharashtra have similarly been run by administrators in the absence of elected councils.Reacting to the poll announcement, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said, “…Mahayuti will contest the elections in Mumbai and, considering the work done by our government, the people will once again hand over Mumbai to us in the form of a municipal corporation, this is my belief…” On seat-sharing in western Maharashtra, Fadnavis said, “Ajit Pawar and we cannot contest the elections together in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. Both of us understand politics well enough to know that if we contest together, it benefits a third party, and we do not want to allow that to happen. We will contest against each other, but it will be a friendly fight.” The upcoming elections are expected to be politically significant, with major parties viewing the BMC contest as a key test of strength ahead of the next round of state-level political battles.