While many in the past have contested the State Assembly elections, only four of them have made it to the State Assembly and the rest were forced to confine their work to the municipal council. Presently, two municipal council members have entered the Assembly and Lok Sabha election fray.

Dilip Dandhi, former deputy municipal council president and senior council member, is contesting the Lok Sabha election in Ahmednagar constituency as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee. Arun Jagtap, former municipal council president and sitting council member, has also planned to contest the assembly election.

To this date, the city electorate has not given a chance to any former or sitting municipal council members to get elected to the Lok Sabha. Gandhi, who is also the leader of the BJP in the municipal council, is the second municipal council member to seek election to the Lok Sabha.

Earlier, former municipal council member Ram Ratnakar had unsuccessfully contested the 1996 Lok Sabha election. Ratnakar, who represented the Communist Party of India (CPI) in the municipal council, had also unsuccessfully contested the 1972 and 1978 assembly elections as CPI nominee. Dr. Shrikrishna Misal, a former municipal council member, was elected to the State Assembly in the election held in 1967. Misal, who was a Congress candidate, had then defeated Navnitbhai Barshikar.

Prof. S.I.M. Asir is credited with being the first former municipal council member who occupied the post of a minister in the state ministry after getting elected to the Assembly. He had won the Assembly election in 1980, defeating Mukund Ghaisas, the then council member.

In 1985 election, Dada Kalamkar, a former council member, was elected to the State Assembly, defeating Asir. Kalamkar was however, defeated in the Assembly elections held in 1990 and 1995. In 1995, former municipal council president Shankarrao Ghule had also contested the Assembly election, revolting against the official Congress nominee. Both Kalamkar and Ghule were municipal council members at that time and both were defeated.

Navnitbhai Barshikar is the lone example of a sitting president of the municipal council being elected to the State Assembly. He was elected in the Assembly election held in 1972 as an independent.

During his tenure as an MLA, he also occupied the post of president of Ahmednagar Urban Cooperative Bank and municipal council president. No one in the city has broken his record of occupying so many important posts at the same time. Barshikar was however defeated in 1978 and 1990 Assembly elections.

Arun Jagtap had contested the assembly election as a Janata Dal candidate in 1990 and was defeated. Later, Jagtap had served for five years as the president of Ahmednagar municipal council. Now, he is a sitting council member.