Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai
Mumbai, Dec 16: With the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections scheduled for January 15, political activity in Maharashtra has gathered momentum. Soon after the poll schedule was announced, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) initiated the first round of discussions with its Mahayuti alliance partners to finalise seat-sharing arrangements and election strategy.
According to party sources, the BJP will hold separate meetings with its key allies — the Shiv Sena and the Republican Party of India (RPI) led by Union Minister Ramdas Athawale. The meeting with the RPI is scheduled for noon, followed by talks with the Shiv Sena at 2 pm.
The discussions will be held at Vasant Hall in Dadar. Senior BJP leaders including Amit Satam, Atul Bhatkhalkar, Pravin Darekar and Ashish Shelar are expected to represent the party. The Shiv Sena will be represented by leaders Uday Samant, Ravindra Waikar, Prakash Surve and Rahul Shewale.
Earlier, State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare announced the long-pending civic election schedule, stating that the nomination process will begin on December 23 and continue till December 30. Elections will be held for 29 municipal corporations across Maharashtra, including the BMC.
A total of 2,869 seats are up for grabs, with nearly 3.48 crore voters eligible to cast their ballots across major urban centres such as Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.
The announcement comes amid political controversy in Mumbai over alleged “vote chori” or vote theft, with Opposition parties claiming that electoral rolls have been inflated with fake and duplicate voters. While the BMC has initiated a clean-up of the voters’ list, the Shiv Sena (UBT) has launched its own ground-level verification drive across all 227 civic wards.
This will be the first BMC election after the 2022 split in the Shiv Sena and is expected to be a high-stakes contest between the BJP-led Mahayuti and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena faction, with political and financial control of Mumbai hanging in the balance.