Overview
- Voting concluded on January 15 across 29 municipal corporations, including Mumbai’s BMC, with results to be tallied on January 16.
- The State Election Commission cited a 2012 order to permit door-to-door visits into the silent period and readied 140 PADU backup display units for exceptional EVM failures in the presence of BEL technicians.
- Opposition leaders, including Uddhav and Raj Thackeray, alleged bias, questioned PADU transparency, and accused rivals of distributing money and goods late in the campaign.
- Polling day brought EVM glitches, voter-roll and booth mismatches, the non-use of VVPATs, and claims that finger marks could be erased; police registered FIRs, detained 208 women in Ambernath over alleged bogus voting, and formed an SIT to investigate.
- The Bombay High Court rejected pleas for a probe into alleged coercive mass withdrawals that yielded unopposed wins, and the SEC withheld final turnout figures after reporting 41.13% statewide at 3:30 pm.