Mahayuti Sweeps Maharashtra Civic Polls

After weeks of highly-charged campaigns to seek control over 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra, including the key one of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in Mumbai, early trends indicated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), either independently or in an alliance, was emerging as the clear front-runner in most of these elections.

It had taken a lead in 24 out of the 29 municipal corporations. This includes Mumbai, where it is in alliance with the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena; seven out of the other eight municipal corporations that make up the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR); and also Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, where the two Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) factions, the Ajit Pawar-led group and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP), were its main challengers. It is also leading in several other key urban centres like Nagpur, Nashik, Jalgaon and Solapur. The only MMR region that the BJP currently isn’t dominating is in Vasai-Virar, where the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi led by former MLA Hitendra Thakur has taken the lead over the BJP. While the Congress has performed poorly in Mumbai and many other areas, it has taken the lead in Latur, along with its ally Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, and is either in close competition or appears to have taken a slim lead in places like Kolhapur, Bhiwandi, Amravati and Chandrapur.

If this trend of BJP’s dominance in these polls continues, combined with the earlier phase of elections to smaller civic bodies in Maharashtra in December, where it won 207 out of the 288 municipal councils and nagar panchayats, this will signal a big win for the party. It had already achieved its best ever performance in the state during the last Assembly polls, and it will now spread its dominance in the many civic bodies too.

While these elections will go down as a big loss for the opposition and a win for the Mahayuti, this election also cements BJP as the big brother within the alliance. Eknath Shinde has retained his clout in Thane and is currently leading in Navi Mumbai, but elsewhere the BJP has surged ahead over everyone else. In Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, where Ajit Pawar had combined his faction with the NCP (SP) and conducted a high-decibel campaign, one that even fuelled talk of a merging of the two factions and aggressively attacked the BJP, it ultimately failed to convince the voter. The Pawars had once effectively ruled Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad for decades before the BJP wrested them away during the last set of elections.

Given the manner in which the BJP has dominated these elections, it will mean that both Shinde and Pawar will have few options but to stick closely with the BJP as its big brother.