A student of the Gurukul School of Art wears an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM)-themed costume made of paper as part of a voter’s awareness campaign ahead of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election, in Mumbai, on January 10.
| Photo Credit: PTI
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections, have turned Mumbai into an epicentre of India’s most complex urban political contest. Unprecedented alliances, including the reunion of Shiv Sena (UBT) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), clash with the organisational dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shinde Sena Mahayuti, which has already secured a significant edge through unopposed wins. As Congress breaks from the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), new equations make voters face a stark choice. The verdict will shape not just Mumbai’s civic future, but Maharashtra’s evolving political order.
Scheduled for January 15, with counting on January 16, BMC elections represent a high-stakes battle for control of India’s richest civic body, boasting a budget exceeding ₹74,000 crore.
Confusing alliances
Maharashtra’s civic polls highlight a complex web where everyone is allied to everyone and simultaneously opposed to everyone. The standout is the Uddhav-Raj Thackeray reunion with the Shiv Sena (UBT) and MNS, bitter rivals for decades, uniting against the BJP-Shinde Sena dominance, invoking Marathi pride and Balasaheb Thackeray’s legacy through joint rallies. Yet Congress, once a partner with Uddhav’s Sena as part of the MVA, has rejected this “communal” MNS tie-up, breaking ranks to ally with the Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi (VBA), which will be contesting 62 seats for Dalit-minority consolidation.
The Mahayuti alliance (BJP-Shinde Sena) appears cohesive, with the BJP contesting 137 seats and the Shinde-led Sena 90. However, underlying tensions over power-sharing persist despite formal Fadnavis-Shinde protocols. Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) adds to the complexity; it is contesting the BMC alone with 94 seats, yet in Pune it has allied with Sharad Pawar’s NCP directly opposing its own Mahayuti partners. Across camps, parties are aggressively courting key voter blocs — the Dalits (Congress and VBA), Marathas (the Thackerays), minorities (VBA), and women (with the BJP fielding 76 female candidates). At the same time, former allies are increasingly turning on one another. The MVA has fractured as Congress distances itself from the Sena (UBT), while the Mahayuti has sidelined Ajit Pawar’s NCP at the local level. The Thackerays, meanwhile, have reconciled selectively to target Shinde’s splinter faction. This fluid pattern of alliances, where today’s ally becomes tomorrow’s adversary, highlights a defining trend in contemporary Maharashtra politics.
The rise of factions in BMC
Shiv Sena’s factionalism since the 2019 split eroded its BMC fortress, once a Thackeray family bastion, paving the way for BJP’s rise. The 2017 elections marked this shift: from 2012’s classic Sena-BJP vs Congress-NCP duel (44.75% turnout) to a fractured multi-cornered contest in 2017. Sena contested all 227 wards, won 84 (many with <40% vote share), but needed BJP’s post-poll support in a hung house (no one crossed 114). BJP surged from 31 to 82 seats; Congress plummeted from 52 to 31; MNS collapsed from 28 to 7, hurting Sena strongholds. BJP’s organisational edge signalled its ascent, which has now culminated in its already unopposed lead.
Mahayuti, with the BJP and Shinde Sena fighting together, commands early control of 68 unopposed BMC/civic seats (with the BJP in 44). This reflects BJP’s machinery and Shinde Sena’s recovery from the split, positioning them for decisive victory. BJP’s 137 candidates, including 76 women, target Sena’s traditional turf while the Shinde Sena’s 90 seats lean on coalition dynamics. Uddhav’s Sena-UBT and the MNS have bet on the Marathi Manoos (native of Maharashtra) rhetoric and youth mobilisation via Aaditya/Amit Thackeray’s shakha tours. The Congress-VBA (165+62 seats) alliance is exploiting MVA rifts for Dalit leverage, criticising the Thackeray-MNS tie-up as divisive.
A new Mumbai
Once a Shiv Sena stronghold, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has turned into a contested battleground shaped by shifting coalitions, identity politics, and strategic alliances. This no doubt offers rich material to study mandate fragility, regionalism, and power-sharing in fragmented democracies. The “everyone versus everyone” nature of alliances in Mumbai highlights a new era of Indian electoral politics that demands deeper academic analysis.
As Mumbai heads to the counting day, the BMC election stands less as a routine civic contest and more as a referendum on Maharashtra’s new-age politics. The city is being asked to choose between memory and momentum: the emotive pull of the Thackeray legacy, now awkwardly reunited and politically diminished, versus the organisational might of the BJP-Shinde Sena alliance. These elections will reveal whether Mumbai’s voters still see the Thackerays as the natural custodians of the city’s civic and cultural identity, or whether they are ready to endorse the post-split reality where power has decisively shifted away from the Shiv Sena (UBT).
Sanjay Kumar is a professor and election analyst. Arindam Kabir is a researcher with Lokniti-CSDS. Views expressed are personal. It does not reflect the views of their institution.
Published – January 13, 2026 08:30 am IST
