BMC elections show why Sena still matters in Mumbai despite BJP’s onslaught

There appeared to be more gushing in the mainstream media than in the BJP when the result of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was declared on January 16 and the saffron party won 89 seats out of the total 227, more than any other party. This was described in news reports as the BJP “sweeping” the poll. But reality was quick to dawn.

Tussle for Mayor’s post

The BJP is not able to dictate terms to its Mahayuti alliance partner Shiv Sena (Shinde) on the question of mayor. Thus, while a BJP mayor for the first time in Mumbai’s history is likely, this is by no means a certainty though the Shinde Sena is a junior partner as far as the numbers game goes.

With 118 seats, the BJP and the Sena together cleared the halfway mark in the BMC election but are locked in intense negotiation over the mayor’s post. The Shinde Sena has gone to the extent of barricading its 29 corporators in a high-end Mumbai hotel in order to prevent poaching by foe or friend.

BJP will remember 2019

The irony of this cannot be lost, and the BJP-Sena tussling can’t be taken lightly by the BJP. In 2019, before the split in the Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray, the latter had broken the National Democratic Alliance with the BJP on the question of who would be the Chief Minister, although the BJP had more MLAs.

This led to unheard of changes in Maharashtra politics and also national politics as Thackeray was eventually - after some hesitation on the part of the Congress - able to get into an alliance with the national party, so far seen as antagonistic to it.

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The all-India Hindutva party was then in the process of trying to oust the Maharashtrian parochial-cum-Hindutva-party from its perch in the broad sphere of Mumbai, the Sena’s constituency and playground - a case of competition between the local versus national. Mumbai was important, and the BJP couldn’t but try to gain supremacy in India’s finance capital. But the BJP had to take a back seat in this clash, and its immediate design was thwarted.

High stakes

However, the saffron party persisted in its long-term design, broke the Thackeray-led Sena into two, and formed an alliance with the faction led by the ambitious Eknath Shinde who wanted to be Chief Minister at any cost. The BJP gave him the job for a time just to bait him, and then took it away. Shinde is now angling for his party bagging the mayor of Mumbai.

The unspoken fear in the BJP that Shinde will do to the saffron party what he had earlier done to Uddhav Thackeray cannot be discounted. The stakes are high. The BMC controls a budget of nearly Rs 75,000 crore, more than that of many states taken together. Who will control it is the question.

Strength of 3 Sena factions

Let’s look across the aisle in the BMC. The Thackeray Sena with 65 seats is second only to the BJP in the corporation - far from wiped out under BJP’s assault, as the media claimed. In fact, Uddhav Thackeray has performed creditably as leader.

There are three Sena factions - that of Raj Thackeray who had split away and formed the Maharashtra Nirman Sena as far back as 2006; Shinde’s who split away as recently as 2022; and, of course, Uddhav Thackeray’s faction.

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If the three hang together in the BMC, they will have 100 corporators - way more than BJP’s 85. In effect, the local - if it can come together and act with common intent - is way ahead of the national saffron party trying to muscle its way in and dominate affairs in Mumbai, the seat of Indian capitalism.

If the Congress is added to this mix, since it has been Thackeray’s ally at the national level in recent times but chose to fight the BMC poll independently (for reasons that can only be deemed incoherent in the larger scheme of things), then the collective strength of the group will be 124 seats - way more than what the BJP can muster along with Shinde Sena if they hold together.

BMC in BJP’s control since 2022

It is noteworthy that Thackeray secured a high number of seats in spite of the fact that the BJP leads the government in Maharashtra along with Shinde Sena. Contrary to the media propaganda, it is the BJP which has controlled the resource-rich BMC since 2022 after the five-year term of the pre-split Thackeray-led Sena came to an end. Since then, in fact, the BMC has been in the hands of the bureaucracy - in effect, the BJP, who has an influential Chief Minister in Devendra Fadnavis, a rising star in his party.

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In spite of this - and here lies the rub - the BJP won only a few more seats in the 2026 election for the BMC than it had done in the last election in 2017. For one reason or another, the BMC poll could not be held when scheduled in 2022, and the corporation has been under an administrator since.

BJP has highest number of legislators in state

In Maharashtra politics, the BJP has bounced back after its dismal showing in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Whether this owes to the Election Commission factor - with the nominated poll body being widely seen as a handmaiden of the BJP - is a subject of wider national debate. For now, in Maharashtra, BJP has the highest number of legislators and controls just over half the municipal corporations.

But its overall reliance on a local state party is undeniable - and that has been the saffron party’s weakness for a considerably long time. How it squares up to this challenge, and how its opponents play the changing field, is a matter of considerable political interest.

NCP’s poor show, Congress’s myopia

For one, both factions of the Nationalist Congress Party, respectively led by Ajit Pawar and his uncle Shard Pawar, have done very poorly in the just-held municipal corporation polls and have been practically routed in their much-touted bastion of Pune and areas around it. Can they save their integrity as a common-interest entity?

The Congress Party seems to suffer from myopia and organisational indolence. It betrays little understanding of the idea of a political conjuncture. From any long-term perspective, its performance was way below par although it ranks the third among parties on the table of wins in municipal wards, and has bagged the mayor’s post in five corporations spread in different regions of the state.

There has been little coordinated central effort or thinking in the Congress as far as Maharashtra goes. This has been the trend since the 2014 Assembly polls when the party fought the state Assembly polls leaderless, resource-less, and rudderless but still managed to win one seat more than the NCP, then run wholly by Sharad Pawar.

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In the recent Maharashtra municipal election too, the Congress appeared to be at sixes and sevens in its basic ideological thinking, choosing to go alone rather than with an ally, although the BJP, a bigger party, did not let go of its Shinde Sena ally.

Although poll results give the impression of the existence of a constituency for the Congress in Maharashtra in spite of the marked lethargy of its national leadership, and factional quarrels at the state level even during an election campaign, much would depend on how the party marshals its energies and plays to its strengths.

Congress losing Muslim vote to AIMIM

It seems to be on its way to surrendering a segment of its supporters from the Muslim minority community to the AIMIM as the perception appears to persist in some minority quarters that the Congress - as an organization - does not strike out boldly to present its issues. In Maharashtra, the Congress also appears to have only a notional support base among the Dalit community, once a strong constituency for the party.

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What about the three Sena factions? How they respond to one another in the changing scenario, and to the BJP and the Congress, will be watched with considerable interest. With NCP’s sharp decline and the BJP unable to manage in Maharashtra without an ally, the actions of all political parties are under the scanner. Parties will be tested for clarity of a long-term view.

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