Jalgaon City Municipal Corporation Elections 2026: 1038 Applications For 75 Seats, Ticket Chaos Triggers Party Infighting

Jalgaon: In the Jalgaon Municipal Corporation elections, 1038 candidates had filed applications for 75 seats. In contrast, 615 applications were filed in the previous election held in 2018.

The election, being held after seven years, saw immense competition among aspiring candidates for the 75 seats. By the end of Tuesday, the last day for filing applications, the total number of applications filed had reached 1038, compared to 615 applications filed in the previous election in 2018.

As the parties did not announce their candidates until the last day of the election, the aspiring candidates were anxious. While giving nominations, the BJP denied candidature to 14 people, and even those loyal to the BJP did not receive tickets. Notably, even those who were told to prepare for the election were not given tickets, leaving these aspirants extremely angry.

Uday Bhalerao, who has been loyal to the BJP for the last 50 years, received a message the previous night to prepare for the election. He filed his application that night and waited for the A-B form until noon. Later, he learnt that he had not received the nomination. He expressed strong displeasure over this incident, saying that the party had played a cruel joke on them. Some changed parties and accepted nominations from other parties.

The Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar group) had taken the stance that they would not accept less than 25 seats. As the BJP did not give this party any seats in the seat-sharing agreement, the party leaders surrendered and accepted six seats to secure tickets for their family members. Protesting this incident, Abhishek Patil, the metropolitan president of the Ajit Pawar group, immediately resigned from his post, alleging that the party had been sold out. His allegations caused a stir in the party.

The BJP, which speaks against dynastic politics, has angered party workers by neglecting loyal grassroots activists and instead giving tickets to Jayashree Mahajan, who contested against the BJP in the assembly elections, and Sunil Mahajan, whom the BJP itself had accused of pipe theft.  

The son of BJP MLA Suresh Bhele was given a ticket. The son and daughter of Shinde Sena MLA Chandrakant Sonawane also received nominations. This dynastic distribution of tickets has led to discontent among the citizens.  Aspiring candidates had the naive expectation that party loyalty would be prioritised when distributing tickets. In reality, however, the party that claims "country first, then the individual" was seen conveniently giving tickets to family members, thus contributing to dynastic politics.