MUMBAI: Despite winning a record 89 seats in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the highest tally any party has secured on its own since the 2002 civic elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s state leadership is reportedly unhappy with the outcome, with insiders calling it “below expectations”.
The BJP had set an ambitious target of winning at least 110 seats to move closer to the halfway mark, but fell well short, prompting an internal review of what went wrong in the campaign. Party leaders cited lack of coordination within the Mumbai unit, flawed candidate selection and the failure to counter the “Marathi asmita and Mumbai pride” pitch made by Raj and Uddhav Thackeray as key reasons for the underwhelming finish.
Ahead of seat-sharing talks with the Shiv Sena led by deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde, the BJP had initially planned to contest more than 155 seats and aimed to win around 120–125. However, with the intervention of the party’s central leadership, Shinde is said to have negotiated aggressively and secured 91 seats for his party, leaving the BJP with 137.
With its reduced seat share, the BJP revised its goal to 110 seats, but managed only 89.
“The party had inducted 11 sitting corporators from other parties, taking the tally of sitting corporators to 93, including its own 82, ahead of the polls. We could not even retain that number,” said a BJP leader, requesting anonymity. “Mistakes in picking candidates, poor coordination in the city unit, and failure to counter the Marathi narrative set by the Thackeray brothers towards the end of the campaign were major factors,” the leader added.
Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has reportedly conveyed his displeasure to the Mumbai unit over the party’s inability to convert its momentum into a bigger win. According to party sources, the state leadership believes the Thackeray brothers’ joint rally at Shivaji Park on Sunday, where they appealed to Marathi voters to “save Mumbai and Marathi identity”, had a measurable impact.
“The presentation by Raj Thackeray on the Adani group’s growth over the last decade was effective and struck a chord, but we could not counter it with an equally strong response,” another BJP leader said. “The leadership saw this narrative building up but didn’t get enough time to neutralise it. The failure to assemble a crowd for the Shivaji Park rally on Monday also hurt the Mahayuti politically,” the leader added.
While the BJP has won 49% of the total seats across 29 municipal corporations that went to polls on January 15, and recorded a strike rate of over 64% in Mumbai, leaders acknowledged that expectations were far higher in the country’s richest civic body.
The party believes the sharp shift among Marathi voters proved decisive. “Our north Indian and Gujarati-speaking vote base remained intact. But the BJP’s hardcore Marathi voter, who backed us in the Assembly election, moved towards the Thackerays in the civic polls,” the BJP leader said. “The swing was so sharp that even the Shinde-led Sena couldn’t stop it. Fadnavis and Shinde tried to defuse the narrative at Monday’s rally, but it was too late.”
The BJP’s state leadership has also flagged weak coordination between alliance partners. “The tussle at the negotiation table reflected on the ground during campaigning as well. There was no parallel mechanism to pacify aspirants denied tickets, which could have minimised damage on both sides,” said a Shiv Sena leader.
However, Fadnavis publicly defended the Mahayuti’s overall performance in Mumbai, noting that the alliance had crossed the 100-mark comfortably. “We have won 119 seats, and at least 14 of our seats have been lost by narrow margins of 7 to 100 votes. If you look at the last three elections, Shiv Sena could not reach this number collectively,” he said.
On the Shiv Sena’s relatively weaker showing, the chief minister said Shinde’s party had faced challenges as this was its first civic election in Mumbai after the split. He also maintained that Raj Thackeray and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) emerged as the biggest losers, arguing that the alliance primarily benefited Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT).
BJP MLA Parag Alvani rejected criticism of the party’s Mumbai campaign, insisting it had met expectations. “We have fared well with better coordination within the party and the alliance. In fact, the Congress had a tacit and tactical understanding with the Thackeray brothers while deciding candidates and fighting the polls,” he said.
Meanwhile, a Sena (UBT) leader claimed the ruling alliance had engineered a split in the Muslim vote bank that had backed the party in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in 2024. The leader alleged that Congress, the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, AIMIM and the Samajwadi Party fielded a large number of Muslim candidates, fragmenting votes in key wards.
“We could have won more seats had Muslims voted en masse for us like they did in the general elections,” the leader said. “AIMIM had gone silent in Mumbai. Days before the civic polls, suddenly it became active and its leaders were flush with resources. No prizes for guessing who was behind it,” the leader added, also blaming Congress’ refusal to align for the loss of minority support.