Mumbai: An improved performance by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has helped put the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance within striking distance of extending its unbroken 17-year hold over Mumbai’s civic body, the country’s richest.
The Sena-BJP alliance, along with partner the Republican Party of India (RPI), managed to win 107 seats, just seven short of the 114 required for a majority in the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM).
Strong showing: Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray celebrates with party workers in Mumbai on Friday. PTI
The outcome belied popular perception that the Congress-Nationalist-Congress Party (NCP) alliance would be able to improve its performance and perhaps also have a shot at taking control of the corporation with the help of independents and small parties.
The Congress and NCP, which are partners in Maharashtra’s coalition government, fought the election together for the first time and it was expected that their alliance would help avoid a division of the so-called secular votes.
The Congress, however, has lost 20 seats compared with the last municipal election and the NCP just managed to retain its tally. The Congress-NCP partnership rules Maharashtra.
“I am thankful to the Congress-NCP that they provided us opportunity to defeat them together and remove the misconception among their leadership’s mind that we were winning in Mumbai only because the Congress-NCP combine was fighting separately in the municipal polls,” Uddhav Thackeray, Shiv Sena’s working president, said.
The election for MCGM had been regarded as an acid test for three Maharashtra leaders: chief minister Prithviraj Chavan needed a win to strengthen his hand in local politics; the Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray had to prove that he could help his party hold power in the country’s financial capital; Uddhav’s cousin and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) founder Raj Thackeray had to consolidate the gains in popular support he has made since the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
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Mint’s Makarand Gadgil says Mumbai civic polls results have thrown up a surprise, with the BJP’s improved performance putting the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance within striking distance of regaining control of the country’s richest municipal corporation.
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Unlike his predecessors, Chavan personally got involved in seat-sharing talks with the NCP as well as in the selection of Congress candidates, but he was not able to control factionalism within the Mumbai Congress, analysts said.
“One major reason why the Congress suffered was that its leadership in Mumbai is self-styled and thinks it is not answerable either to state or central leadership of the party and the party had to suffer its consequences,” said political commentator Prakash Bal.
Civic elections in other parts of Maharashtra produced mixed results. While in Mumbai’s neighbouring Thane, the Sena-BJP managed to retain power for the fifth consecutive time, in Pune—where the NCP and Congress fought independently—the NCP emerged as the single largest party, but fell short of a majority.
In Nashik, the MNS emerged as the single largest party but it will have to take the help of either the Sena-BJP block or Congress-NCP to come to power.
In Nagpur—the home town of the BJP’s national president Nitin Gadkari—the BJP joined hands with the Sena and has managed to retain power.
The rise of the MNS was a key takeaway from the Mumbai election. The party increased its tally by four times from seven in 2007 to 30 in 2012.
makarand.g@livemint.com