MUMBAI: Bolstered by the victory in the 2024 Assembly elections following an 89% win of the contested seats, and over 48% seats won in the municipal council and nagar panchayat elections held last month, an elated Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) next move is to win at least on its own half of the 29 municipal corporations, which are going to the polls next week. Regardless of the tug-of-war between seasoned players and the new entrants over ticket distribution, which has cast its shadow over cities such as Mumbai, Parbhani and Chandrapur, the party is confident that it will better its previous performance nine years ago.
Soon after forming the government with the help of then undivided Shiv Sena in 2014, BJP had won 1099 of the 2736 or 40.17% seats in 27 municipal corporations that went to the polls between 2015 and 2018. Now, party leaders are leaving no stone unturned to emerge as the largest in terms of the seats and number of corporations headed by its mayor.
Over the next week, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis will hold over 50 rallies between Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and other cities, while the party’s state unit chief Ravindra Chavan and election in-charge Chandrashekhar Bawankule will hold between 45-50 rallies in the state.
A senior BJP leader, requesting anonymity, said, “Key leaders from the districts are shouldering the responsibility of outreach programmes at the ground level, by tapping into the voters’ imagination. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been providing them inputs from voters’ surveys conducted over the last four months.”
This gives the leaders an idea about combating shortfalls in potential areas and corrective measures that need to be taken, the leader added.
Equally strategic were BJP’s decisions on alliances in certain local bodies. “Way before the elections were announced, the party had decided to align with Shiv Sena in Mumbai rather than NCP,” said the leader. “Before that, it took steps to strengthen its weak regions by inducting potential leaders from other parties. Key NCP leaders were poached ahead of the polls in Solapur which helped the party bag major bodies in the first phase of the local body polls,” he added.
Similar moves helped BJP since the 2014 Assembly polls. The task to induct leaders from other parties was given to Ravindra Chavan soon after he was elected the state unit chief in July last year. “Every leader inducted from other parties brings in at least 10% to 20% votes with him. The party leaders who engineered the poaching spree are more important in the party,” said another party leader.
Mumbai and other bodies
However, the party’s confidence is tempered by caution, especially with regards to Mumbai, Chandrapur, Parbhani, and two corporations of Pune.
The Thackeray cousins – Uddhav Thackeray, head of Shiv Sena (UBT) and Raj Thackeray, head of MNS — joining forces ahead of the polls have posed a challenge to BJP, said insiders. With the Marathi versus Gujarati plank at play historically in all civic elections in Mumbai, BJP has a Herculean task ahead before it can assume centrestage.
“The Opposition had already set the narrative of the BJP-led government working in the interest of Gujarat at the cost of Maharashtra. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah leading the Central government, such a narrative has stirred up the Marathi manoos. With the two Thackerays claiming to be their messiahs, it falls on us to ensure that the Marathi-speaking voters do not desert us,” said the BJP leader.
Aligning with Shiv Sena and conceding 90 seats to the party, after its chief and deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde drove a hard bargain, was done to woo the Marathis. Shiv Sena leaders say, the response the party received in the Assembly, Nagar panchayat, and municipal council elections in Konkan has established the fact that Konkani voters have accepted Shinde’s party as the original Sena.
The BJP now hopes Sena will help sway the votes of Konkanis in Mumbai. BJP, which jumped to 82 seats in 2017 from just 31 in 2012, in the 227-seat BMC, aims to win at least 90 seats this time.
BJP is however on the backfoot in Muslim dominated cities such as Malegaon and Parbhani. It is reeling from the infighting in Chandrapur and may prove to be difficult for them to reach halfway in those civic bodies.
Mumbai based political analyst Prakash Akolkar said that it would not, however, be a cakewalk for the BJP or the Mahayuti in Mumbai, in the backdrop of the Thackerays uniting. “Whenever the BJP is in trouble it plays the Hindutva card, as they are doing now. They flaunt the development agenda but invariably project the Hindutva and Anti-Muslim agenda. The BJP is also in a dilemma over the alliance with Shinde and Ajit Pawar as the party wants their help to win the elections, all the while controlling their equity in the Mahayuti,” he said.
BJP spokesperson Keshav Upadhye, however said that the outcome of phase 1 will be reflected in the phase 2 of the local polls. “We have thrown our full might for the polls, with major leaders holding rallies across the state cashing on the development works done by state and central governments. We have alliances with our ruling partners in over 15 corporations and are confident to win most of them,” he said.