BMC Election Results: 5 factors that helped BJP storm India’s richest civic body, ending Sena dominance

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Mahayuti alliance is set to come to power in 25 of the 29 municipal corporations, including Mumbai, where elections were held on January 15.

Breaking the nearly three-decade-old dominance of the undivided Shiv Sena, the BJP on Friday emerged as the single largest party in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections

The BJP-led alliance was set to surpass the 114-seat majority mark in the 227-member BMC, which is India's richest civic body, whose budget for 2025-26 is a whopping ₹74,427 crore. Counting of votes was held on Friday, a day after the polling saw a 54.77 per cent turnout.

The State Election Commission is yet to release an official statement on all the results.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Fadnavis said, addressing jubilant party workers in south Mumbai in the evening. Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked the voters over the emphatic victory of BJP and allies in the civic polls.

“Thank you Maharashtra! The dynamic people of the state bless the NDA’s agenda of pro-people good governance,” Modi posted on X.

Coupled with a decent performance by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena, the BJP is now in the driver's seat to govern the cash-rich Mumbai civic body. The high-stakes battle for BMC saw the Thackeray cousins reunite after two decades, only to see their hopes dashed as the results announced so far indicated.

The results today cements the BJP’s position as Maharashtra’s leading political force, underscoring that its dominance now clearly extends to urban civic bodies as well, beyond just Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

Here are five factors that worked for BJP in BMC Polls

The BJP-led Mahayuti is in power in the state where the BJP-Shiv Sena (Shinde) has emerged as a powerful combination

Fadnavis has emerged as the man of the moment, with the BJP under his leadership surpassing its previous high of 82 seats in the 2017 BMC elections. The success of BJP's ‘Mission Mumbai' has now firmly established it as the key political force in the financial capital. The result marks a significant shift in Mumbai's power structure.

Congress refused to share a platform with Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Nanirman Sena due to ideological differences and fear of losing the North Indian vote bank, and is contesting independently. But in several other key regions, the party stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the MNS in an alliance.

The BJP successfully framed the election around ‘stable governance’ and development, highlighting stalled projects during administrator rule and projecting the Mahayuti as best placed to unlock Mumbai’s civic logjam.

“Hindutva has always been our soul; one cannot differentiate our Hindutva from development,” Fadnavis said.

Apart from these reasons, the BJP effectively blended national leadership appeal with local civic promises, ensuring alignment between state-level power and Mumbai’s municipal governance.