Mumbai: Mumbai has gone without a civic body election for almost three years but 2025 might break the impasse. With a clear victor emerging from the state assembly polls, political observers predict BMC elections could take place in the early months of next year, though the first step — finalising the electoral roll — can be taken only when the urban development department (UDD) formally communicates with the civic body.
“After that, the process takes almost two months. A catch is that elections are generally not held in March owing to school exams,” said a senior BMC official. The last BMC polls, for example, were held in Feb 2017, following which Shiv Sena’s Vishwanath Mahadeshwar was elected mayor on March 8 that year.
An official pointed out that the post of state election commissioner, last held by retired IAS officer UPS Madan, has been vacant since his term ended in Sept this year. Traditionally, this post is held by a retired chief secretary or additional chief secretary-rank officer and is expected to be filled following govt formation in the state. In the absence of a civic house, all its powers rest with state-appointed administrator Bhushan Gagrani.
An impediment to the civic polls has been the matter of OBC reservation in local body polls landing in the Supreme Court, though in July 2022 the apex court said elections should not be delayed on this account.
The term of the previous civic house ended in March 2022. After the Eknath Shinde-led Sena-BJP govt came to power in June that year, a decision was made to reverse the delimitation of wards in the BMC proposed by the previous govt of MVA, which had increased electoral wards in Mumbai from 227 to 236. The reversal was challenged by former corporators Raju Pednekar and Sameer Desai through separate petitions. In April 2023, Bombay High Court upheld the decision of the Shinde govt, mandating polls for 227 wards instead of the MVA-proposed 236. Pednekar said his challenge should not stop BMC from holding the municipal elections, “as there was no stay on the matter in HC. In SC too, the matter is only being pushed forward to another date”.
In the 2017 BMC polls, Shiv Sena emerged as the largest party with 84 seats, followed by BJP (82), Congress (31), NCP (9), MNS (7), and others (14). But defections have since reshaped the landscape, with six MNS corporators joining Shiv Sena, including Chandivli MLA Dilip Lande, now with the Shinde-led Sena faction, leaving MNS with just one corporator. BMC’s former opposition leader Ravi Raja, who switched sides from Congress to BJP before the assembly elections, said, “It’s a favourable time now for the Mahayuti govt to hold the corporation elections after its landslide victory.”