When Winning Without Votes Becomes the Headline.

The Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) elections that took place in early January 2026 became one of the most scandalous local elections in the recent political history of Maharashtra. The scandal arose when 20 candidates of the ruling Mahayuti alliance were proclaimed winners unopposed, i.e. they were elected without even a vote being cast against them in their respective wards. These results occurred after all the competing candidates in all the major opposition parties and independent formations withdrew or declined to run by the nomination deadline of January 1, 2026.

Although uncontested elections are legally accepted under Indian election law, the magnitude, organisation, and partisanism of such uncontested wins caused massive coercion, bribery, administrative fraud and voter disenfranchisement allegations. A civic body of about 122 members was practically determined without voters, yet this casts great doubts on the genuineness of the electoral procedure. The leaders of the opposition, civil society, and even legal scholars claimed that what happened in KDMC was not a democratic vote, but a perversion of an election contest, now commonly known as a Bin-Virodh win.

A situation whereby a candidate is found to be elected unopposed following the withdrawal and scrutiny of any potential opponent is called Bin-Virodh (which literally translates to without opposition). Despite these provisions to avoid unnecessary polling where there is literally no contest to be had, the democratic theory is explicit in distinguishing legal

permissibility and political legitimacy. Where occasional uncontested triumphs take place, they are naturally regarded as normal; but when they become frequent, and occupied by dozens of wards, and in overwhelming numbers on the side of the ruling party, they are subject to suspicion.

This research discusses the meaning of a Bin-Virodh victory in the legal and electoral context, how this occurred in KDMC in 2026 and why the event is being strongly characterised not just as an electoral anomaly, but as a failure of democracy itself.

What Is a “Bin-Virodh” Victory? Law vs Political Corruption.

The Legal Framework

According to the Indian election law, in case of only one valid candidate following the deadline of withdrawal of nominations, the one who is so declared is elected unopposed. This is provided in cases where there is actually no contest and the polling need not be done since it will be disallowed.

The law does have working assumptions, though; it presumed scrutiny of nominations to be fair and withdrawal to be voluntary, as well as that voters will not be intentionally denied the choice. All three assumptions are put to question at the same time as far as the KDMC episode is concerned, and one wonders whether the letter of the law was employed to the detriment of the democratic spirit of the letter.

The Political Reality

A Bin-Virodh petition is flawed when nominations of opponents are thrown out due to insignificant claims of clerical errors, massive withdrawals in hours after the date, the majority of beneficiaries are part of the ruling party, and claims of financial blackmail or political intimidation.

The phenomenon observed in KDMC was so contrived and not natural, which poses a quintessential question about democracy: since when is a provision of law a political weapon?

The KDMC Numbers: A Statistical Red Flag.

Among the total number of KDMC seats, which is 122, 20 seats, which is about 16.4 percent were unopposed. Among them, Bharatiya Janata Party won 14 seats, and Shiv Sena, headed by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, won 6 seats. In the past history of Maharashtra, there have been no municipal elections where one single ruling coalition has had so many uncontested victories.

The number of oppositional candidates who dropped out of the race totalled 21. These were 7 of Shiv Sena (UBT), 5 of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), 6 of Nationalist Congress Party of Ajit Pawar and 2 of Sharad Pawar faction of NCP. The withdrawals were done along various party lines and wards, with the strength of opposition claims of coordination over coincidence.

The Major Candidates Declared Unopposed.

According to reports by NDTV Marathi and The Times of India, it was revealed that some of the top candidates were declared runaway winners. The candidate of Shiv Sena and the son of the sitting MLA, Rajesh More, Harshal More, was declared the unopposed candidate of Ward 28A. A complete panel sweep occurred in Ward 24 as Shiv Sena candidate Ramesh Mhatre, Vishwanath Rane and Vrushali Joshi defeated all the voters.

BJP had Asavari Navare in Ward 26C, Dombivli and Rekha Chaudhary in Ward 18A, Kalyan, as some of the first candidates to be declared unopposed. Another politically notable withdrawal was that of Manoj Gharat, the MNS President of the City of Dombivli, who abruptly withdrew, valuable in through allegations of PR behind the scenes.

Scam charges: Bribery, Pressure and Administrative Fixing.

These results were described as a scam system rather than electoral victories by the opposition leaders. The Shiv Sena (UBT) MP, Sanjay Raut, reported that the bribes being sent to candidates went up to 5 crores. He alleged that bags with 5 crore in them were being delivered to the home of candidates and demanded a phone records investigation to determine which ministers or government offices called candidates in the last 24 hours before the withdrawal deadline.

The claims were supported by the Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi, who claimed that candidates were pressured and bribed continuously to pull out. In his opinion, nominations were called to wherever the money was distributed.

Other than the financial inducements, the opposition parties claimed that the election administration was selectively enforced. They claimed that the rejection of opposition nomination papers by returning officers due to minor clerical errors was being done whilst the same irregularity was disregarded in Mahayuti nominations. These accusations cast the impartiality of the electoral machine with grave doubts.

The Defence of the Ruling Alliance.

Mahayuti Partnership denied such claims. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde attributed this unopposed defeat to being a supportive vote on the achievements and welfare programs by the government, such as the Ladki Bahin program. According to him, he said that opposition parties were undergoing public rejection, and they were trying to subvert the result of the election.

According to the opinion of the BJP spokesperson Keshav Upadhye, the party gained 44 unopposed seats in eight municipal corporations in Maharashtra, the KDMC results could be

seen as a new trend where the organisation acted in all the areas and reached the grassroots level, rather than through election manipulation.

Law Problems and the NOTA Controversy.

The scandal later shifted into the legal arena. When a ward had only one candidate, social activist Shrinivas Ghanekar petitioned the Bombay High Court, claiming that at the time the election was not held in those wards. The petition was based on the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court that acknowledges voting as a kind of expression and the importance of not being able to say no to all the candidates with the help of this tool, which is called NOTA (None of the Above).

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) promoted the concept of NOTA being an imaginary candidate. According to this proposal, in case the sole candidate has not obtained the majority in the political elections, the election should be declared annulled, and a re-election should be held if the candidate named NOTA had received more votes than a single candidate. Although this idea is not yet established in legal terms, it has been popular in the case of the common discourse as a potential reform that should be made to save the element of democratic choice.

The State Election Commission recognizing the gravity of the charges, said that it would not formally certify 20 unopposed winners until it received a copy of the inquiry reports on the potential occurrence of coercion or inducement by the Municipal Commissioner. This conservative position highlighted institutional apprehensiveness regarding the state of affairs of the unchallenged wins.

The 27 Villages Boycott and Its Electoral Effect.

The scandal was also aggravated by the 27 Villages Struggle Committee, which insisted on complete boycotting the KDMC elections, as a protest against a separate municipal authority.

Several of the panels refused to vote or even to have candidates in the committee, such as 13, 16, 17, 19, 30, and 31. Despite the boycott being grounded on the old grievances, it unwillingly assisted unchallenged wins in various groups. This episode pointed to the impact of political disengagement, however, inspired by protest, as inadvertently strengthening mainstream politics and diminishing the competitiveness of an election.

Niche Analysis: Why Bin-Virodh Municipal Wins.

The municipal corporations are also the ones who have much say within the urban governance, which includes property tax collection, development of infrastructures, land use authorisation, and local contracting. Getting a large number of councillors unopposed allows the ruling parties to institutionalise power in administration and avoid voter pressure. The existing comparative democratic literature suggests that uncontested seats with more than 10 per cent in a representative body plummets the mass level of trust in elections. The number in KDMC was close to 16 per cent, which is considered a limit usually synonymous with democratic backsliding.

As demonstrated in international case studies in countries like Hungary and Turkey, the most frequent precursors to a wider loss of electoral competition and institutional autonomy are repeated unchallenged local elections. The KDMC case, therefore, can be viewed as a micro-level case study of the co-existence of procedural legality and substantive democratic harm.

Another Reason Why “Bin-Virodh” Wins Are Dangerous.

Bin-Virodh wins are perilous since they eradicate voter agency, normalise coercive political behaviour, undermine institutional credibility, demoralise both sides to participate, and turn elections into an administrative routine and not a democratic one. When the citizens are deprived even of the token right to vote, their representation is compromised.

The 2026 controversy in the KDMC election is more than just a case of municipal office given up in contention; this is a challenge to democracy at the ground level. Although the consequences of an unopposed win are legal, the conditions that have ensued such victories, such as the withdrawal of numerous people, accusations of corruption, selective administrative investigation, and voter disenfranchisement, are especially concerning as far as the Constitution and ethics are concerned.

In the case these practices become normal, elections will turn into a tool of political consolidation instead of instruments of public consent. The KDMC episode thus becomes a drawback that democracy can be undermined not only through the manipulation of the ballots, but also through the systematic elimination of the very election choice.

References

• Indian Express. (2026, January 5). From 10 to 69, unopposed wins spike this time, but it was a rarity earlier. Indian Express https://indianexpress.com
• Ten News. (2026, January 5). ‘Institutionalised corruption’: Shiv Sena(UBT) on Mahayuti winning seats unopposed in local polls. Ten News. https://tennews.in
• Times of India. (2026, January 5). 39 Mahayuti candidates win unopposed across 4 bodies, raise opposition hackles; SEC to scrutinise. Times of India https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
• Times of India. (2026, January 5). Congress expels two for ‘anti-party activity’, says their nomination withdrawal resulted in Mahayuti's unopposed wins in KDMC elections. The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
• The Week. (2026, January 5). Unopposed wins in polls are good for democracy; Opposition free to seek a legal remedy. The Week. https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates

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