Mumbai is set to get a new mayor by the end of this month after the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) registered a decisive victory in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation
(BMC) elections, ending the long-standing control of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction) over the country’s richest civic body.
Urban Development Department of Maharashtra will conduct a lottery next week to decide the reservation category for the mayoral post. The mayoral election will be held exactly 10 days after the reservation process is completed. Based on this timeline, Mumbai is likely to have a new mayor only by the end of January.
How the mayor is selected
The process begins with the Urban Development Department determining, through a lottery, the category for which the mayor’s post will be reserved, such as general, women or backward classes. Once the category is announced, eligible candidates file their nominations.
The election is then conducted in a special meeting of the elected corporators of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. The candidate who secures a majority more than half of the total strength of the House is elected mayor.
If no single party commands a clear majority, alliances play a decisive role. Given the current political equations and the BMC poll outcome, sources say the possibility of defections or realignments during the mayoral contest cannot be ruled out.
Results at a glance
In the BMC elections, the BJP–Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) alliance emerged as the single largest bloc, decisively outpacing the Thackeray camp. Official figures show the BJP winning 89 seats, while its alliance partner secured 29. The Mahayuti alliance also swept key civic bodies, including Thane, Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, across the 29 municipal corporations that went to polls.
Reacting to the outcome, PM Narendra Modi said the BJP had achieved a historic milestone in Mumbai. “The BJP has secured a record victory for the first time in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, one of the world’s largest municipal corporations. This is a significant development in Maharashtra politics,” Modi said at a public meeting in Malda, West Bengal.
