Due to delay in conducting elections for a variety of reasons, most of the local bodies in Maharashtra are having an administrator instead of an elected body. From January 1, 2024, all the municipal corporations in the State will have ‘Administrator Raj’ as there will be no elected body in place in any of these. Maharashtra has total 29 municipal corporations. Already, the term of elected bodies on 25 of them came to an end during the past over a year. The term of two more -- Ahmednagar and Dhule -- will come to an end by the end of this month. The schedule of elections to newly-created Ichalkaranji and Jalna municipal corporations is yet to be announced. Given the situation, on January 1, 2024, all 29 municipal corporations in State will be having Administrators/Municipal Commissioners and there will be no elected body. Already, the term of major municipal corporations including Brihanmumbai, Pune, Thane, and Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has come to an end. In fact, the tenure of NMC’s elected body came to an end on March 4, 2022. One year and nine months have passed by since then, but the elections are yet to be held to put in place new body. As a result, there is as Administrator.

 

The leaders of political parties have all gone silent. The general citizens facing local problems like bad roads, frequent digging of roads causing inconvenience, roads remaining unrepaired for long time, incomplete projects, etc do not have any corporator to go to. The general people are not finding the Administrators striking a direct dialogue with the citizens, visiting various areas to inspect ongoing works, and interacting with people to resolve their grievances. Similar is the case in Brihanmumbai, Pune, Thane, Akola, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nashik, Solapur, Amravati municipal corporations where the term of the elected body came to an end on different dates in March 2022. Chandrapur Municipal Corporation elections were due in May 2022. According to sources, of total 385 other municipal bodies, the number of those without elected body will increase to 257 by the end of this month. Of total 385 municipal bodies, 243 are municipal councils, and 142 are Nagar Panchayats. Out of 243 municipal councils, those having Administrators will rise to 228 on January 1, 2024.

 

There will be 29 Nagar Panchayat that will have Administrators from the said date. The scenario is not much different in case of 34 Zilla Parishads (ZPs) in the State. By the end of this month, the number of ZPs having Administrators will increase to 26. At least on this count, Nagpur ZP is blessed. For, it has an elected body in place. Like ZPs, the number of Panchayat Samitis having Administrators will increase to 289, which will be 82.33 per cent of total 351 Panchayat Samitis in Maharashtra. In most cases, the elections are delayed owing to the petitions in court regarding constitution of Prabhag and with whom the powers are vested. The changes relating to reservation also had their impact on the process of finalising number of reserved Prabhags/wards in local body elections. Whether all the issues are sorted out in the new year and whether the elections are held before the Lok Sabha or are deferred to a later period up to Legislative Assembly elections, remains to be seen.