The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) found itself at the centre of an unusual online mix-up after the official list of winning candidates, released in English on its portal, featured several Marathi names translated literally, resulting in unintended humour and widespread confusion.
Instead of phonetic transliteration, multiple names appeared as direct English meanings. For instance, Anandi was rendered as ‘Joy’, Swapnil Dudhane appeared as ‘Dreamt of by Milk’, while the surname Sutar was translated as ‘Carpenter’. In another example, Jangle Ujwala Subhash was displayed as ‘The forests are bright’.
The awkward phrasing and literal interpretations quickly drew attention on social media, with users sharing screenshots and questioning the accuracy of the civic body’s digital processes. The issue is believed to have arisen due to an automated translation system being used to convert Marathi names into English, instead of following standard transliteration norms.
Names, especially in official records, are expected to be retained in their original form or phonetically converted to avoid misrepresentation.
Following the backlash, civic officials today released a clarification stating that details of winning candidates were uploaded on the official website on January 16, 2026, solely in Marathi, for the information of citizens and candidates. PMC stated that it is the only municipal corporation in Maharashtra to have published general election results live on its website, which witnessed an overwhelming response of around 41 lakh visits in a single day.
The results were updated round-wise as the counting progressed. However, PMC noted that when some citizens accessed the website using browsers with automatic translation features such as Google Translate, certain Marathi names were translated literally into English words. This automatic conversion led to misunderstandings and confusion among citizens, which later spread on social media.
Clarifying the issue, PMC emphasised that the original names of all candidates were correctly and accurately published only in Marathi on the website on that day, and no candidate information was officially published in English at that stage. The corporation further stated that after the declaration of complete results, the final list of winning candidates has now been officially released in both Marathi and English.
PMC has urged citizens to rely only on the official versions published by the corporation and not on browser-based automatic translations.
The official lists are available at: Marathi list: https://www.pmc.gov.in/b/winning-candidate-list-2026 English list: https://www.pmc.gov.in/en/b/winning-candidate-list-2026
