Buoyed by Uddhav Thackeray's resignation, BJP aims to wrest Shiv Sena's bastion BMC

Bolstered by the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led government in Maharashtra on Wednesday, BJP declared its intent to win the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election. On Twitter, the official handle of the JP Nadda-led party's Mumbai unit posted a photo of former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis with a bat in his hand with the caption, "This is just a glimpse, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (election) is remaining". While the BMC polls were scheduled earlier this year, they were delayed owing to the Supreme Court's stay on the reservation of seats in local body polls for OBCs.

As the term of the elected corporators ended, Iqbal Chahal has been running the affairs of the Mumbai civic body as the Administrator. The last occasion on which an Administrator was appointed in BMC was in April 1984, when he had a tenure of one year. The upcoming polls are being perceived as a litmus test for Uddhav Thackeray as 39 out of 55 Shiv Sena MLAs are with Eknath Shinde who is likely to bag a key role in the new government. 

Neck-to-neck battle between Shiv Sena & BJP

BMC is considered Asia’s richest civic body with an annual budget of nearly Rs.37,000 crore. Shiv Sena has been a formidable force in the civic elections even when NCP-Congress was in power in the state. In the 2017 civic polls, BJP and Shiv Sena contested separately as they could not agree to the seat-sharing formula. Reportedly, Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had threatened to pull out from the BJP government both in Maharashtra as well as the Centre at that juncture.

Thus, the 2017 BMC election became a prestige battle for the Sena and BJP. The results brought in more cheer for BJP than the Sena as the former secured 82 seats, an increase of 51 seats from the previous election. Moreover, the Shiv Sena fell way short of the majority winning just 84 seats. On the other hand, Congress, NCP, and MNS won 31, 7 and 6 seats respectively.

After hectic negotiations, BJP decided not to challenge the Sena on the Mayor’s position. Thus, Shiv Sena's Kishori Pednekar and Suhas Wadkar won the election to the posts of Mayor and Deputy Mayor respectively on November 22, 2017. While the divide between the two allies continued to grow over the years, the Sena consolidated its position in the BMC when all 6 winning candidates of the MNS joined the party.