Dispute Over Reservation Lottery Clouds Pune Municipal Elections

Pune, 18th November 2025: The municipal administration last week conducted a reservation lottery to determine eligibility for candidates in the upcoming Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) elections, but the process has sparked objections from opposition leaders and civic groups.

A total of 165 members will be elected in the elections, which are set to take place across 41 wards. Forty of these wards will follow a four-member system, while ward number 38 will have five members, with three women to be elected in this ward.

Former Bharatiya Janata Party opposition leader Ujjwal Keskar, along with former corporator Suhas Kulkarni and Prashant Badhe of the civic group ‘Aaple Pune,’ have formally raised objections to the lottery procedure with Municipal Commissioner Naval Kishore Ram.

The trio has alleged discrepancies between the state government’s notification dated May 20, 2025, and the instructions issued by the State Election Commission on November 7. “The order of the State Election Commission has included provisions that were not part of the government notification. This has caused irregularities in the reservation process,” Keskar said.

They highlighted concerns over ward number 9, where the reservation percentage has reportedly exceeded 50 percent due to multiple quotas for Scheduled Caste-Tribe women, Scheduled Caste women, and Backward Class citizens. According to the complainants, 44 seats are reserved for the backward class category, and a separate lottery should have been conducted for women in 22 of these seats. “Instead, direct reservations were assigned, causing an imbalance and affecting representation in several wards,” they said.

Keskar further explained, “In previous elections, a separate lottery was conducted first for other backward class women, then for general women, and finally for other backward class general seats. Deviating from this system has led to unfair representation.”

According to the government’s notification, at least one woman was expected to be reserved in every ward, with the remaining eight wards’ reservations to be decided by lottery. “The Municipal Corporation’s current process does not align with these instructions. All reservations granted in this manner are incorrect due to a misinterpretation of the government notification,” Keskar said.

The former opposition leader and ‘Aaple Pune’ organization have demanded that the current reservation allocations be withdrawn and implemented afresh in strict accordance with the May 20 notification.