Mumbai: Eknath Shinde to chair first meeting of 21-member committee for BMC election preparations

As part of efforts to strengthen his party’s groundwork ahead of the elections, Shinde recently announced the formation of the committee, which includes MLCs, Mumbai MLAs, senior party leaders, deputy leaders, spokespersons, and key local figures.

“The committee has been tasked with assessing ground strength, voter outreach, and poll strategy,” said a senior leader from the Shinde camp. The leader added that discussions on seat-sharing with the ally BJP could also take place during the meeting. “While no official seat-sharing meeting has been held yet, our party plans to seek at least 100 of the 227 BMC wards,” he said.

The BMC elections, along with polls for 28 other municipal corporations across Maharashtra, must be conducted before January 31, 2026, as per the Supreme Court’s directive to complete all local body elections in the state.

In the 2017 BMC polls, the undivided Shiv Sena had won 84 seats, narrowly surpassing the BJP’s 82. The two saffron allies, who had jointly ruled the BMC for nearly 25 years, parted ways ahead of that election and contested separately. Following the 2022 split engineered by Shinde, more than half of Uddhav Thackeray’s corporators have since joined the Shinde-led Sena.

Now, both the BJP and Shinde Sena are racing to claim control of Asia’s richest civic body. While the BJP has set an ambitious “Mission 150-plus”, Shinde is determined to wrest the BMC from the Thackeray faction and prove his dominance in Mumbai’s political heartland.

Meanwhile in Nashik

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will visit Nashik on Thursday to lay the foundation stone for multiple development projects approved for the 2027 Kumbh Mela. He will also inaugurate the newly constructed Zilla Parishad building during the visit.