Uddhav set to lose control over India’s richest municipal body BMC
Mumbai: Breaking the nearly three-decade-old dominance of the undivided Shiv Sena, the BJP on Friday emerged as the single largest party in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections, and also triumphed in Pune, where it made mincemeat of the alliance of NCP factions led by Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar.
The BJP-led Mahayuti alliance is set to come to power in 25 of the 29 municipal corporations, including Mumbai, where elections were held on January 15, Maharashtra Chief Minister Fadnavis said, addressing jubilant party workers in south Mumbai in the evening.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked the voters over the emphatic victory of BJP and allies in the civic polls. “Thank you Maharashtra! The dynamic people of the state bless the NDA’s agenda of pro-people good governance,” Modi posted on X.
The BJP-led alliance was set to surpass the 114-seat majority mark in the 227-member BMC, which is India’s richest civic body, whose budget for 2025-26 is a whopping Rs 74,427 crore. Counting of votes was held on Friday, a day after the polling saw a 54.77% turnout.
The State Election Commission is yet to release an official statement on all the results.
Coupled with a decent performance by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, the BJP is now in the driver’s seat to govern the cash-rich Mumbai civic body. The high-stakes battle for BMC saw the Thackeray cousins reunite after two decades, only to see their hopes dashed as the results announced so far indicated.
In Pune and neighbouring Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal corporation polls, the BJP is heading towards a massive victory, way ahead of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and NCP (SP) alliance.
Fadnavis has emerged as the man of the moment, with the BJP under his leadership surpassing its previous high of 82 seats in the 2017 BMC elections.
The success of BJP’s ‘Mission Mumbai’ has now firmly established it as the key political force in the financial capital.
The result marks a significant shift in Mumbai’s power structure. For years, the BMC was considered the invincible fortress of the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena. With BJP’s victory, the narrative of Mumbai politics has moved from the traditional identity-based ‘Marathi asmita’ to a mandate for the BJP’s plank of ‘vikas’ (development) and urban infrastructure.
Maharashtra minister and BJP leader Nitesh Rane said the BJP and Shiv Sena’s strong showing in the BMC polls amounted to a clear mandate for its Hindutva pitch during the campaign, as the alliance surged ahead in the race.
“Hindutva has always been our soul; one cannot differentiate our Hindutva from development,” Fadnavis said.
Shrikant Pangarkar, an accused in the 2017 murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh, was elected a corporator in the Jalna Municipal Corporation, winning the elections as an independent candidate. In Nagpur, home turf of CM Fadnavis and Union minister Nitin Gadkari, counting trends and results for the Nagpur Municipal Corporation suggested a near-repeat of the 2017 results, leaving the Congress struggling to make significant inroads despite an aggressive campaign.
The BJP is on course to surpass the 2017 tally of 108 seats in the 151-member Nagpur civic body. The Congress, which contested the polls in alliance with the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, won elections to the Latur Municipal Corporation, bagging a clear majority with over 40 seats in the 70-member body, leaving the BJP a distant second.
