BJP upbeat about winning big in areas with substantial North Indian voter base following Friday’s landslide victory in northern state
The facade of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation headquarters is seen reflected in a puddle in Fort. FILE PIC/NIMESH DAVE
The outcome of the Bihar Assembly election is expected to influence the upcoming polls to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and other civic bodies, particularly in areas with a sizable number of North Indian voters. With several wards in Mumbai, Thane, Mira-Bhayandar, and Kalyan-Dombivli having a substantial North Indian voter base, the BJP expects the Bihar verdict to have an impact and appeal among these groups.
Knowing the size of the Bihar-origin population in Mumbai, all political parties put up banners and set up help centres during Chhath Puja, which is considered a major festival for the Bihari and a few other North Indian communities. Mumbai BJP president Ameet Satam said, “The Bihar poll is just a trailer, the real picture will be the BMC.” With the reunion of the Thackeray cousins, Uddhav and Raj, over the issue of ‘injustice towards Marathi and its speakers’, it is almost certain that in the coming local body elections, especially in Mumbai and Thane, it will be more of a Marathi-versus-non-Marathi contest, along with development issues.
Ameet Satam, Mumbai BJP president
According to rough estimates, Marathi-speaking people now make up less than 35 per cent of Mumbai’s population, while migrant Gujaratis, North Indians and Rajasthanis together account for almost half of the city’s 1.4 crore people. In the 2017 BMC elections, the undivided Shiv Sena won 84 seats, just two more than the BJP. For almost 25 years, the Shiv Sena and BJP had run the BMC together. But in 2017, their alliance broke, and they fought the election separately. Since then, the BJP has been aiming to gain complete control over Asia's richest municipal corporation.
No wonder, the party has started using the demographic and linguistic changes in Mumbai to its advantage by building support among migrant groups. Of the 36 MLAs in Mumbai, 13 are non-Marathi and seven of them belong to the BJP. Similarly, in the 2017 BMC, of 227 corporators, 72 were non-Marathi, and half of those were from the BJP.
Last year, after the landslide victory in the Assembly elections, in its edition published a day after the results, mid-day reported the BJP's announcement of “Mission 150” for the BMC. Now that the strong performance of the BJP and the NDA in Bihar has given the ruling alliance fresh momentum, party leaders believe it could carry over this wave into the civic polls in the city and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. “The spectacular result from Bihar will charge the party cadre ahead of the crucial local body elections, especially the high-stakes BMC battle,” a senior BJP leader said on condition of anonymity.
After the 2022 split in Shiv Sena, engineered by Eknath Shinde, more than half of Uddhav Thackeray’s corporators moved to Shinde’s side. The elections to the BMC and 28 other municipal corporations are likely to be held before January 31, 2026, as per the deadline set by the Supreme Court to complete all such polls in Maharashtra.
Congress must accept reality: CM
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis referred to the outcome of the Bihar polls as a befitting reply by “Janta” to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. Fadnavis claimed that Rahul Gandhi had been opposing the popular mandate and maligning constitutional institutions. “At least now, Congress should accept the reality and understand the mood of the nation. If they fail to do so, the Congress's performance will deteriorate further in the coming days,” he added.
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