1700 candidates are in the fray, voting will be on 15th and the decision will come on 16th.. BMC elections will take place on the last day today. Candidates will put forth their strength.

Shiv Shankar Savita- Municipal corporation elections, which decide the picture of urban power in Maharashtra, have reached a crucial juncture. Voting for 29 municipal corporations of the state is to be held on January 15, while today is the last day of election campaigning. In Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) alone, around 1,700 candidates are in the fray for 227 wards. The election results will be declared on January 16. The tenure of the current BMC councilors has ended on March 7, 2022. After this, the administrative work of the Municipal Corporation was running on the trust of officers and administrators. These elections were to be held in February 2022, but were continuously postponed due to delimitation, reservation and political disputes. Now after almost three years, the real test of urban politics is taking place in entire Maharashtra including Mumbai.

Elections are to be held for 29 municipal corporations

Apart from Mumbai, a total of 29 municipal corporations including Thane, Navi Mumbai, Ulhasnagar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Mira-Bhayander, Vasai-Virar, Panvel, Nashik, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nagpur, Amravati, Solapur, Kolhapur, Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Nanded-Waghala, Jalna, Latur and Chandrapur are included in these elections. Political rhetoric has also intensified on the last day of campaigning. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde launched a scathing attack on Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, questioning what was done for the Marathi people during the 25 years of Shiv Sena rule in BMC. Shinde directly targeted the Thackeray leadership regarding Marathi identity and development of Mumbai.

Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray have come together after 20 years.

It is noteworthy that Shiv Sena had control over BMC from 1997 to 2022. This is the first BMC election after the party split into two factions, in which Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde are face to face. At the same time, Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray have come together in BMC elections after almost 20 years of separation. Both have made Marathi identity their main election issue. This time in the BMC elections, the traditional alliances of Maharashtra are not in their old form. BJP and Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) are contesting the elections together. On the other hand, Shiv Sena (UBT) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) have formed an alliance. The Congress has decided to enter the fray in alliance with the Bahujan Vanchit Aghadi (VBA), which also includes smaller parties like the Left and Rashtriya Samaj Party. Both factions of NCP, Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar are contesting the elections alone.

Shinde faction is contesting on 137 seats and Shiv Sena on 90 seats.

Talking about seat sharing, BJP is contesting on 137 seats and Shiv Sena of Shinde group is contesting on 90 seats. Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena is contesting on around 150 seats and MNS on 70 seats. Congress has fielded 143 candidates in Mumbai, while VBA is contesting on 46 seats. The Congress-led alliance has fielded candidates on a total of 195 seats. Due to these equations, there are 32 seats of BMC where the contest is directly between BJP-Shinde alliance and Thackeray Sena-MNS. Due to the absence of a third front on these seats, there is no possibility of division of votes, which has made the contest even more interesting.