Gram Panchayat bypolls on May 18 in Maharashtra

Amid the intense war-of-words between the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP alliance and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi, 2,630 Gram Panchayats (GPs) would go in for bye-elections on 18 May.

The elections would be held to fill 3,666 vacancies of members of GPs and 126 sarpanchs.

The State Election Commission (SEC) of Maharashtra announced the schedule for the bye-elections on Thursday.

The elections have been necessitated because of death, resignation, disqualifications or other reasons.

According to the SEC schedule, the nominations would be filed between April 24-May 2.

The scrutiny would be done on May 3 while the last day of withdrawal is May 8.

The polling would be held on May 18 while the counting of votes would be taken up on May 19.

The polling is being held at a crucial time when both the ruling and opposition groups have several issues in hand.

It coincides at the time when the MVA is holding ‘Vajramuth’ or the thunderbolt series of rallies - which is a sort of show of strength after the 2022 June toppling of the Uddhav Thackeray-led grand anti-BJP coalition.

Following this, the Election Commission has legitimised the group led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde as the real Shiv Sena and allotted the bow-and-arrow symbol.

The Thackeray-group, which is now known as the Shiv Sena (UBT) has come under heavy attack from the BJP for Congress leader’s Rahul Gandhi’s repeated attack on Veer Savarkar, the revolutionary freedom fighter and Hindutva icon.