Mumbai, Jan 5 : Amid the controversy over unopposed elections in municipal corporations, the Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday said it may cancel the poll process and announce fresh elections in wards where irregularities are found, based on reports submitted by municipal commissioners of the respective civic bodies.

Sources in the SEC said that following a surge in formal complaints, the Commission has directed municipal commissioners to conduct independent inquiries into every ward where a candidate was elected without contest. The issue of unopposed victories has triggered a sharp political confrontation between the ruling alliance and the opposition.

â??The inquiry will focus on several critical aspects to ensure the integrity of the democratic process. It will examine whether opposition candidates were pressured, threatened or bribed into withdrawing their nominations. It will also assess whether returning officers or other election officials committed any misconduct or procedural lapses to favour specific candidates,â?? SEC sources said.

They added that if any evidence of wrongdoing is found during the probe, the results will be nullified immediately and fresh elections will be announced in the concerned wards.

The sources further said that even in wards where no immediate irregularities are detected, the formal declaration of â??unopposedâ?? winners will not be made immediately. To maintain uniformity across all 29 municipal corporations, the SEC has decided that such results will be declared on June 16, along with the general counting of votes for all other contested seats.

The SECâ??s move comes amid protests by opposition parties over the unopposed victories of more than 70 candidates, most of whom are reportedly from the ruling Mahayuti alliance.

The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) on Monday accused the ruling Mahayuti of pushing Maharashtra towards a moral and democratic decline, alleging that the ongoing municipal elections had turned into a â??farceâ?? marked by the â??mafia-isationâ?? of democratic processes through money power and intimidation of opposition candidates.

The party said the unopposed election of around 70 corporators had exposed fierce competition within the ruling alliance, particularly between the BJP and the Eknath Shinde-led faction, to secure uncontested seats, which it described as a distortion of democracy.

In a scathing editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana, the Thackeray camp claimed that the current political situation in Maharashtra reflected growing authoritarianism and institutional arrogance. It argued that if electoral victories are effectively purchased before polling, the Election Commission itself stands undermined.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut also criticised the trend of unopposed victories, particularly involving Mahayuti candidates, saying that even some of the countryâ??s tallest leaders were never elected unopposed.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal alleged that the BJP-led Mahayutiâ??s pursuit of power had reached a point of â??swallowing democracyâ??. He accused the Devendra Fadnavis government of undermining democratic processes by using pressure, threats and money power to engineer uncontested victories in municipal elections.

/IANS