Mumbai: Although the Bombay High Court on Friday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) which claimed that a large number of nomination forms for the BMC elections were rejected by authorities, the two petitions alleging that the returning officer (RO) of south Mumbai Krishna Jadhav acted on behest of assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar and did not accept nominations, are yet to come up for the hearing.
AAP Raises Concerns Over Alleged Election Machinery Hijacking
“The petition dismissed by the HC sought restoration of candidates for were rejected for failure to furnish documents by the ROs. This PIL is totally different from the writ petition against Colaba RO Jadhav and speaker Rahul Narwekar, who misused constitutional position and ‘hijacked’ election machinery. Narwekar and his entourage physically obstructed AAP candidate and 17 other candidates from filing nomination,” said AAP’s Mumbai working president Ruben Mascarenhas.
Citizens File Petition for Nomination Acceptance and Inquiry
Apart from this, eight citizens of Mumbai, which also includes the MNS candidate and AAP candidate Margaret Da Costa, have filed a petition urging the HC to direct RO Jadhav to accept their nominations, as their nominations were not accepted despite taking the deposit and being present in the RO office premises before the 5 pm deadline of December 30, 2025.
The petitioners alleged that the RO Jadhav acted at the behest of Narwekar, who was present in his office on the last day for filing nomination forms, and also sought an inquiry into the entire episode.
Although the petitioners urged for an urgent hearing ahead of the polling on January 15, the division bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Akhand said that the matter would be listed for a hearing within the coming days.
Senior Leaders Demand Action Amid Allegations
Meanwhile, after several allegations against the assembly speaker, BJP MLA Rahul Narwekar, for being present in the RO office and influencing the candidates' nomination process for the 2026 BMC elections, former chief minister and senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan called the situation ‘deplorable’ and demanded to cancel the whole election process in the three wards within Colaba constituency, and conduct the entire election process from the beginning.
“I demand that civic elections for all three wards under Colaba constituency should be cancelled; otherwise, democracy has no meaning. You can't conveniently run the elections to boost a particular individual. The prime minister of India should take cognisance of this and act on it,” Chavan said.
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