Why does nobody seem to care about the municipal elections in Maharashtra?

Question

Maharashtra is a major Indian state, home to the richest city Mumbai.

Almost all of the municipal corporations in Maharashtra have elections overdue for over a year now (i.e. should have taken place in 2022 or earlier), including important cities like Mumbai and Pune. However, nobody seems(/seemed) to care about these elections. Neither the current BJP-Shivsena government, nor the former government led by current opposition parties.

Is this even legal? None among the political parties, state government, central government, the judiciary or election commission seem to be giving these local government elections much attention. That's quite weird. Why is that?

It's not like these are unimportant local bodies. For example, Mumbai's municipal corporation alone manages a budget higher than many smaller states.

Answer 1

The terms of major municipal corporations in Maharashtra including Pune, Mumbai, Nashik, Pimpri Chinchwad have already expired but due to the pending case in court the election commission has not announced a new election.

The main reasons of delay of the these municipal corporations are as follows as is known.

There is a ongoing legal tangle between Maharashtra Gov. and Supreme court of India on the matter of political reservation for OBCs after Supreme Court scrapped the reservation.

Covid - 19 and the delay in restructuring of wards after an increase in the total number of wards in many corporations also halted the progress of elections.

On the issue of OBC reservation the court asked the Maharashtra state to to provide data on OBCs to State Backward Class Commission and to submit a report on that.

It seems that the state government is more anxious and does care about the elections. Here is deputy chief minister of Maharashtra.

Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis has predicted that the municipal elections in the state are likely to be held in September or October this year.

“The case in the Supreme Court will come for hearing in July. Considering that if the final verdict comes in August, the election might take place in September or October month. However, it will only depend on the court and nobody else can predict it” he said.

As you have asked about giving attention to the elections by governing bodies like election commission etc. Since the case is pending at supreme court and all these authorities are below the court they actually can't decide the further course of action until the final verdict of the court to decide.