BJP-Sena Leads 100 seats, On Way To Control BMC

After over two decades of the undivided Shiv Sena’s control of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), early trends indicated that the Mahayuti alliance of the BJP and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena was set to win Mumbai’s municipal body.

At the time of writing this report, the Mahayuti’s early lead had crossed 100 out of the 227 seats in the BMC. It was leading in 113 seats compared to the 70 of Shiv Sena (UBT) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), according to reports. Of this, the BJP had secured leads in 85 seats, its ally Shiv Sena in 28, compared to Shiv Sena (UBT)’s 62 and MNS’ eight. Congress was leading in nine, followed by the Nationalist Congress Party (SP) in one.

This election was particularly crucial for the Uddhav Thackeray. Having faced a rout in the Assembly polls, he had buried the hatchet with his cousin Raj Thackeray, and built an emotive campaign around Marathi identity. This however did not seem to have worked entirely. The aggressive wooing of the Marathi vote-bank also meant that it may antagonise voters from other communities, and this too appears to have hurt them.

For the Mahayuti, and in particular the BJP, this result will mean that it has stormed that last bastion of the old undivided Sena that had so far eluded it. Back in the last BMC election in 2017, the BJP was just two seats behind the undivided Shiv Sena’s 84, when the latter emerged as the party with the most seats. If the BJP pulls ahead of all others, as it seems it is doing now, it will mean that it will now have a ‘triple engine sarkar’ in India’s financial capital, with the party controlling all three levers of power, from the Centre to the State and now the BMC.