BJP-Mahayuti sweeps BMC, major civic bodies; Opposition cries foul over ‘missing voters’

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Mahayuti allies won the Maharashtra civic elections, winning 25 out of 29 municipal corporations, including the prestigious Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). This marked a significant shift in power, ending the Thackeray family’s nearly three-decade rule over the BMC.

The Mahayuti alliance crossed the majority mark of 114 in the 227-member BMC and secured 118 seats. BJP emerged as the single largest party with 89 seats. Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) won 29 seats. Shiv Sena (UBT) led the opposition by winning 65 seats. Congress won 24 seats. AIMIM made significant progress with 8 seats in Mumbai and 114 seats across the state; MNS won 6 seats. The BJP-led coalition also held sway in other major urban centres. In Pune, the BJP fared significantly better than the NCP groups combined (25 seats), securing a win with 123 seats. In Nagpur, the BJP won 102 seats in its stronghold while the Congress won 34 seats.

In Thane, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena maintained its dominance by winning 75 of the 131 seats, while in Navi Mumbai, the BJP clinched the title with 65 seats for the first time. The opposition, including Uddhav Thackeray and Rahul Gandhi, has alleged “gross mismanagement” and “murder of democracy”, citing missing voters, indelible ink controversies and abuse of power. and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis termed the result as an endorsement of the BJP’s development agenda, while opposition leaders questioned the conduct of the polls and alleged abuse of power. The Prime Minister praised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Mahayuti’s victory in the Maharashtra civic body polls, stating that the party won in places where it was once thought impossible to gain support.

During a public meeting in West Bengal’s Malda, Prime Minister Modi attributed the BJP’s victory in the BMC polls and Thiruvananthapuram local body elections in Kerala to the confidence of young voters in the BJP’s ‘development model’. Prime Minister Modi said, “The results of the urban local body elections in Maharashtra were declared yesterday. The BJP has achieved a historic victory in these elections. Especially, the BJP has achieved a record victory for the first time in Mumbai. This is a significant development in the politics of Maharashtra in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), one of the largest municipal corporations in the world. A few days ago, the BJP also elected its first mayor in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala.”

This shows that even in places where it was once thought impossible for the BJP to win elections, the party now has unprecedented support.”Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the BJP had achieved an “unprecedented victory” and emerged as the “single largest party” in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections. “I am very happy that the Bharatiya Janata Party has achieved an unprecedented victory in Maharashtra. The Bharatiya Janata Party and our alliance partners won a clear majority in nearly 25 of the 29 seats, including Mumbai. BJP has emerged as the single largest party and I wholeheartedly congratulate the people of Maharashtra and all the BJP workers.” CM Fadnavis said that the results show the faith of the people of Maharashtra in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and acceptance of the development agenda pursued by the BJP-led NDA government in Maharashtra. “This victory is a testament to the faith of Maharashtra in Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This victory is a result of the hard work of all our employees, especially the public support of the development agenda that we are pursuing…”, Fadnavis told ANI. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari also said that the NDA is not interested in politics based on caste or religion and is pursuing development with “complete honesty”. The people have elected us for 5 years. People’s trust and love is our greatest strength. We have not done politics on caste, religion, language. We have pursued development with complete honesty,” Gadkari told reporters. “We continued our development process and did not discriminate in any way in development…” he said. According to Maharashtra Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis and other BJP leaders, Yuti recorded a massive victory in the state civic polls due to his “development agenda”.