Municipal elections are won ward by ward, often by a few hundred votes. This guide explains how urban local bodies are organised and elected, and how our team supports ward-level surveys, maps and booth work for municipal campaigns.
Every municipal corporation, council and nagar panchayat in the Local Government Directory, as of 25 September 2026. Open a state for its full list, then any body for its wards and the assembly and Lok Sabha seats that cover it.
| State / UT | All bodies | Corporations | Municipalities / councils | Nagar / town panchayats | Notified areas | Wards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uttar Pradesh | 770 | 17 | 200 | 545 | 8 | 13,018 |
| Tamil Nadu | 650 | 23 | 147 | 480 | — | 12,729 |
| Maharashtra | 422 | 29 | 244 | 149 | — | 7,256 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 413 | 16 | 99 | 298 | — | 7,711 |
| Karnataka | 330 | 18 | 184 | 124 | 4 | 7,512 |
| Rajasthan | 309 | 10 | 115 | 184 | — | 10,245 |
| Bihar | 264 | 19 | 88 | 157 | — | 5,629 |
| Chhattisgarh | 194 | 14 | 56 | 124 | — | 3,634 |
| Gujarat | 170 | 17 | 152 | — | 1 | 1,422 |
| Punjab | 166 | 13 | 98 | 55 | — | 3,200 |
| Telangana | 161 | 11 | 150 | — | — | 3,453 |
| Odisha | 143 | 6 | 53 | — | 84 | 2,586 |
| West Bengal | 128 | 7 | 118 | — | 3 | 3,033 |
| Andhra Pradesh | 124 | 17 | 82 | 25 | — | 3,923 |
| Assam | 115 | 1 | 40 | 74 | — | 1,178 |
| Uttarakhand | 107 | 11 | 45 | 51 | — | 1,222 |
| Kerala | 93 | 6 | 87 | — | — | 3,613 |
| Haryana | 87 | 11 | 52 | — | 24 | 1,686 |
| Jammu and Kashmir | 78 | 2 | 57 | — | 19 | 1,124 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 76 | 5 | 29 | 42 | — | 648 |
| Jharkhand | 49 | 10 | 20 | 18 | 1 | 1,104 |
| Nagaland | 39 | — | 3 | 36 | — | 407 |
| Arunachal Pradesh | 35 | 1 | 1 | 33 | — | 59 |
| Manipur | 27 | 1 | 26 | — | — | 304 |
| Tripura | 27 | 1 | 13 | 13 | — | 320 |
| Mizoram | 24 | 1 | — | — | 23 | 247 |
| Goa | 14 | 1 | 13 | — | — | 226 |
| Meghalaya | 11 | — | 6 | 5 | — | 164 |
| Sikkim | 9 | 1 | 1 | 7 | — | 51 |
| Puducherry | 5 | — | 5 | — | — | 116 |
| Delhi | 4 | 3 | 1 | — | — | 272 |
| Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu | 3 | — | 3 | — | — | 43 |
| Ladakh | 2 | — | 2 | — | — | 26 |
| Andaman and Nicobar Islands | 1 | — | 1 | — | — | 24 |
| Chandigarh | 1 | 1 | — | — | — | 35 |
| India | 5,051 | 273 | 2,191 | 2,420 | 167 | 98,220 |
States name their types differently (for example Karnataka’s city and town municipal councils, Rajasthan’s nagar palikas); they are grouped here by the directory’s type code. Cantonment boards are not in the directory’s urban list.
States use different names, but the ladder is the same: from big-city corporations down to town panchayats.
Municipal Corporation
Nagar Nigam / Mahanagarpalika
Large cities. Elected councillors, one per ward, choose or sit with a mayor; the commissioner runs the administration. Wards here can hold tens of thousands of voters.
Municipal Council
Nagar Palika Parishad / Nagar Parishad
Smaller cities and large towns. A council of ward members with a chairperson, directly or indirectly elected depending on the state.
Nagar Panchayat
Town panchayat
Areas in transition from rural to urban. Fewer wards and small electorates, so a few hundred votes can decide a ward.
Cantonment Board
Under the Ministry of Defence
Civil areas inside cantonments, governed by the Cantonments Act with elected civilian members alongside official members.
Small electorates
A ward may have 3,000 voters in a nagar panchayat or 40,000 in a metro corporation. Survey samples and booth plans are sized per ward, not per city.
Rotating reservation
Reserved wards change between elections. We start every project from the latest state notification, so the plan targets the right wards.
Ward rolls and maps
Ward rolls come from the State Election Commission. We map ward boundaries and booths from the published lists so field teams know exactly which streets are theirs.
Ward maps, past municipal results where published, voter-list analysis by ward and verified ward surveys.
Based on Part IXA of the Constitution and State Election Commission practice.
Who conducts municipal elections in India?
The State Election Commission of each state, not the Election Commission of India. Under Article 243ZA of the Constitution the state commission prepares the ward electoral rolls and conducts all municipal and panchayat elections in the state.
How are ward reservations decided?
Seats are reserved for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women (at least one third) under Article 243T, and many states also reserve seats for Backward Classes. The reserved wards are usually rotated from one election to the next, so a ward’s category can change; check the state notification before planning.
How is a ward electoral roll different from the assembly voter list?
The ward roll is prepared by the State Election Commission, usually by dividing the assembly roll into wards. Voters, booth numbers and serial numbers can differ from the assembly list, so ward work should use the ward roll published for that election.
Can you run a ward-wise survey for a nagar nigam election?
Yes. We run door-to-door and phone surveys ward by ward, with GPS-verified interviews, and deliver ward-level results with the sample size and margin of error stated for each ward.
How many urban local bodies are there in India?
The Local Government Directory lists 5,051 urban local bodies across 35 states and union territories (as of 25 September 2026): 273 municipal corporations, 2,191 municipalities and municipal councils, 2,420 nagar or town panchayats and 167 notified area councils, with 98,220 wards between them. Cantonment boards are not part of this list.
Are municipal election results on this site?
Not yet. Results are published by each State Election Commission, often as scanned documents, and no open, machine-readable national source exists. Every local body page lists its wards and the assembly and Lok Sabha seats that cover it; for past ward results, ask us for a specific corporation or council.
Sources: Constitution of India, Part IXA (Articles 243P–243ZG, inserted by the 74th Amendment); Cantonments Act, 2006. Directory of urban local bodies, wards and ward-to-constituency mapping: Local Government Directory (lgdirectory.gov.in), Ministry of Panchayati Raj, as of 25 September 2026, via the open daily mirror at github.com/ramSeraph/opendata, used under the Government Open Data License - India.