A total of 10 major civic bodies, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and Thane, Pune and Nashik, plus 11 zilla parishads (district councils) and 118 panchayat samitis (rural local governments) shall vote, state election commissioner J S Saharia said.
“The election machinery is fully geared up and we shall ensure free and fair voting across the state,” Saharia said, urging the electorate to come out in large numbers to exercise their franchise.
At total of 37.7mn voters shall decide the fate of 17,331 candidates for 5,512 seats up for grabs, including 1,268 in 10 municipal corporations, 2,956 in 11 zilla parishads and 1,288 seats in 118 panchayat samitis.
A total of 43,160 polling booths have been set up across the state which will be manned by around 276,000 officials.
In Mumbai, there will be 7,304 polling booths for the 9.20mn strong electorate. They will vote from among 2,275 candidates vying for the 227 seats in the BMC, the country’s biggest and richest civic body.
The polling in the first phase across zilla parishads and panchayat samitis was completed peacefully on February 16. The results for both the phases shall be declared on Thursday.
The major parties in the fray include the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena, contesting against each other, the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Besides, the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and several regional and local parties have also put up candidates.
All the parties have been engaged in a high-decibel, no-holds barred, vicious campaign, hurling allegations and counter-allegations in the past few weeks.
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