As the change of power begins, all eyes are on the mayor’s race.

There is a stir in the civic circles regarding the possible mayoral candidates of BJP, in which Prabhakar Shinde and Prakash Gangadhare are said to be the frontrunners. However, party’s Mumbai president Amit Satam is not giving anything away. “This is nothing but speculation. BJP and Shiv Sena will first discuss among themselves and then take a decision. It is not certain which party will be the mayor,” he told HT.

With the election body taking charge, the tenure of Municipal Corporation Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani as administrator will end. When a senior civic official was asked if mayor elections are scheduled next week, he said, “The state urban development department will decide the date of reservation lottery for all the corporations. Mayor elections are possible only after the category is decided. The corporation cannot decide the date of election until the category is decided.”

civil budget

Along with the competition for the post of Mayor, the BMC budget is also being announced, which is to be held on 4th February. In the last three years, the budget of one of Asia’s richest municipal corporations was passed without the control of any elected body administrator. Last year’s outlay was a record ₹74,427 crore for 2025-26. Asked about the timing, the civic official said, “It is all interdependent.”

Voter turnout in the BMC elections stood at 52.94%, higher than the 55.59% recorded in 2017. A familiar pattern persisted, with Ward 114 in Bhandup recording the highest turnout of 64.63%, while Colaba recorded the lowest turnout of 20.88%.

Uddhav’s status

One of the key results of the election is the performance of Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT). Once the leader of the undivided Sena, which ruled the BMC for nearly a quarter century, the Sena (UBT) is now the principal opposition in the BMC. The party has secured 65 seats in the 227-member BMC and emerged as the second largest party after the ruling BJP, which won 89 seats.

Mumbai University political analyst and researcher Sanjay Patil said that despite the party’s split, and more than half of Shiv Sena councilors joining Eknath Shinde’s forces in 2022, Uddhav has emerged with a stronger-than-expected performance. Patil said, “With the numbers they have achieved, their party remains firmly in the race; it is not that they have been completely destroyed. The BJP’s aim was to achieve a clean sweep.”

He said that even at the peak of its strength in 2014 and 2019, the BJP was unable to win Maharashtra on its own, with the then Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP being the major obstacles.

Patil said, “Subsequent divisions were aimed at eliminating that resistance. This time, the BJP was eyeing the mayor’s post as an independent, but the opposition restricted it to 89 seats – a marginal increase of only seven compared to the last election. The BJP has still not been able to completely eliminate the political space occupied by Thackeray.”

community change

The changing demography of Mumbai and the changing loyalties of some communities influenced the outcome of the Mumbai elections. Mumbai’s business and professional community decisively turned away from the Sena (UBT-MNS alliance) as their politics increasingly clashed with the cosmopolitan ethos of the city.

“Over time, incidents of intimidation, aggressive street-level tactics and rhetoric around language and regional identity have destabilized traders, professionals and entrepreneurs who value stability, security and inclusivity,” said Viren Shah, president of the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association.

“Comments perceived as hostile towards businessmen and specific communities, whether Gujarati, South Indian or non-Marathi business owners, have reinforced fears that identity-based politics has endangered Mumbai’s open economic culture,” he said.

According to him, Mumbai voters on Thursday sent a clear message: the city belongs to those who work, build and contribute and it will vote for development, governance and stability rather than identity politics.

Ward-level patterns indicate that the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance has captured most of North and West Mumbai. In contrast, Marathi-dominated areas of central Mumbai such as Dadar, Sewri, Lalbagh and Parel largely favored the Shiv Sena (UBT), where the “Marathi Manus” card worked to a large extent.

The BJP won decisively in key south Mumbai and suburban wards. These include Gorai-Yogi Nagar (Ward 9 in Borivali West), where Shivanand Shetty won, and Mulund West (Ward 103 to 108) with a clean sweep of all six wards, establishing his dominance in the area.

Notable winners include former councilor Prakash Gangadhare in Ward 104, Dr. Neil Somaiya in Ward 107 and Dr. Hetal Gala Marvekar in Ward 103.

MNS faced defeat in key contests in Mulund, losing in wards 103 and 104.

In South Mumbai, all three BJP candidates from the Narvekar family registered comprehensive victories despite controversies raised by independent candidates and allegations that they were prevented from filing their nominations.

Makarand Narvekar is among the richest candidates from Mumbai with declared assets ₹124 crores, won from Ward 226. Her sister-in-law Harshita Narvekar and cousin Gauravi Shivalkar-Narvekar also emerged victorious from Colaba-Cuff Parade, Ward 225 and 227 respectively.

Elsewhere, the BJP recorded its biggest win in Ward 46 in Malad West, where Yogita Sunil Koli defeated MNS candidate Snehita Dehlikar by a margin of 21,717 votes. In contrast, one of the closest contests was seen in Ward 90 in Bandra East, where Congress candidate Tulip Miranda defeated BJP’s Jyoti Upadhyay by just seven votes.

The Army (UBT) maintained its hold in select strongholds, registering wins in Vikhroli (Ward 124) and Mahim (Ward 182). In Aditya Thackeray’s Worli constituency, Sena (UBT) candidates won five out of six seats. The victorious candidates included Hemangi Worlikar (ward 193), Nishikant Shinde (194), Vijay Bhange (195), Padmaja Chemburkar (196), Sena’s Vanita Saravankar (197), Aboli Khadey (198) and Kishori Pednekar (199), with only the MNS facing defeat in the constituency.

Former mayors and senior Sena (UBT) leaders like Kishori Pednekar, Vishakha Raut, Shraddha Jadhav, Milind Vaidya and former deputy mayor Hemangi Worlikar also returned victorious, continuing Dadar-Worli’s status as a Sena (UBT) bastion, even as Mulund emerged strongly as a BJP territory.

Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena won Ward 51 of Goregaon and dented the Sena (UBT) in their traditional strongholds as turncoats Trishna Vishwasrao, Mansi Mangesh Satamkar (Mangesh Satamkar’s wife), Yamini Jadhav and Amey Ghole won in their respective wards.

The Congress managed to retain its influence by winning Ward 165 in Kurla West and two seats in Dharavi – Wards 183 and 184. Of the five remaining seats in this large slum, the Sena (UBT) won four – wards 185, 186 and 187 and 189. Shiv Sena gave the seventh seat (Ward 188) to sitting councilor Bhaskar Shetty. Interestingly, the BJP had fielded veteran former corporator Ravi Raja, who had lost to former corporator TM Jagadish (Shiv Sena-UBT) in Ward 185.

The high-profile losers include the son and daughter of former Shiv Sena MLA Sada Sarvankar, former BEST committee chairman Anil Kokil, senior BJP leaders Ravi Raja, Vinod Mishra, Preeti Patankar and Rajul Desai as well as former Congress councilor Sheetal Mhatre, Shiv Sena’s Deepti Waikar Potnis and NCP leader Kaptan Malik.

Congress performed disappointingly in the elections and dropped from 31 seats in 2017 to 24 this time. Not all Congress leaders are disappointed. Amin Patel, MLA from Mumbadevi constituency and deputy leader of Congress Legislature Party, is excited. An experienced councilor, his constituency consisted of five civic wards, from which the Congress won four.

Patel said, “There will be a strong opposition in the civic house with a total strength of 105 elected members, which is a huge number. The ruling party has a very thin majority. In the last two terms, the opposition has been weak, but in the past it used to be very strong.”