Fractured mandates and broken politics muddying BMC polls

Despite its immense power and relentless electoral competition, the BMC has produced a curious paradox--no political party has been able to secure and sustain an absolute majority on its own at the civic body

MUMBAI: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is not just another urban local body. It is Asia’s richest municipal corporation, controlling a budget larger than several Indian states and shaping the everyday lives of over 12 million residents. Control over the BMC offers political parties’ prestige, patronage networks and a foothold in India’s financial capital. Yet, despite its immense power and relentless electoral competition, the BMC has produced a curious paradox--no political party has been able to secure and sustain an absolute majority on its own at the civic body. With only one exception in 1978, Mumbai’s civic politics has been defined by fractured mandates, alliances and defections.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is Asia’s richest municipal corporation, controlling a budget larger than several Indian states and shaping the everyday lives of over 12 million residents. (Photo by Bhushan Koyande/HT Photo) (Hindustan Times)

The BMC’s institutional roots predate India’s independence. The Bombay Municipal Corporation Act of 1888 established a powerful commissioner-led system that remains largely intact despite over 150 amendments. While electoral participation was introduced as early as 1872, adult franchise in municipal elections came only in 1942, with the first fully elected corporation taking office in April 1948. While executive power at the BMC rests with the Municipal Commissioner, the elected representatives exercise their influence mainly through statutory committees such as the standing committee, the improvements committee, the BEST committee, etc. This unique governance model has ensured that even dominant political parties struggle to convert electoral strength into absolute administrative control, an institutional feature that continues to shape Mumbai’s civic politics.

Fractured Mandates and Alliance Politics

From the first election under universal adult franchise in 1948 to the most recent polls in 2017, the BMC has witnessed fourteen elections marked by divided verdicts. The Janata Party’s 1978 victory—when it won 83 of 140 seats with just 35.4% vote share—remains the sole instance of a single-party majority. After 1978, no party has independently crossed even 30% of the popular vote. BMC election results have consistently produced fragmented verdicts, making uneasy alliances and post-poll arrangements a defining feature of civic governance in the city.

The Congress once dominated Mumbai’s civic landscape, emerging as the largest party in the 1961 and 1968 elections. But its influence steadily eroded over subsequent decades. Even when it returned to power in 1992 through an alliance with the Republican Party of India (RPI), internal dissent and cross-voting prevented it from completing a full term. The party’s failure to discipline defectors during the 1996 mayoral election marked a turning point. In the years to come, despite often polling a significant share of votes, the Congress repeatedly failed to translate electoral support into seats due to constant infighting and factionalism earlier and owing to its weakening organisational base in more recent years. Its tally went down from 71 in 2007 to 52 in 2012 and 31 in 2017-- more than a 50% dip in a span of 10 years.

The Shiv Sena first contested the BMC elections in 1968 and quickly emerged as a formidable force. Although it remained short of a majority for decades, the Sena used its ‘sons of the soil’ issue and local appeal, along with strategic alliances, to gain power. For the longest time, the party enjoyed major control over key statutory committees and also secured the mayor’s post on most occasions. The 1985 BMC elections marked a decisive turning point for the Sena. Capitalising on infighting within the Congress and anxieties over Mumbai’s status within Maharashtra, the party won 74 seats, just short of a majority. After a tumultuous decade of 1975-1985, the party was successful in re-establishing itself as the city’s dominant political force.

From 1985 to 2017, barring the 1992 election, the Shiv Sena remained the single largest party in the BMC. Yet, even at its peak, it never crossed the majority threshold, underlining the limits of identity-based mobilisation in a cosmopolitan city. The BJP, meanwhile, never got an opportunity to demonstrate its individual might over the city’s electoral politics until 2014. Between 1997 and 2012, the saffron alliance (Shiv Sena and the BJP) jointly controlled the BMC. The long-standing saffron alliance worked as a political compact of convenience. The Shiv Sena consolidated its control over the BMC and the BJP leveraged this alliance to grow electorally in Mumbai and Maharashtra. The BJP recorded its best ever performance in BMC during the 2017 elections as the party managed to win 82 seats. It was the first instance when the BJP managed to show its individual strength in the civic body over the last two decades. The sharp rise in the BJP’s performance, from 31 seats in 2012 to an impressive 82 in 2017, can be attributed to party’s aggressive campaign centred on transparent governance and development, pitched explicitly to challenge its own ally, the Shiv Sena.

Electoral data shows that in the 2002 and 2007 elections, the Congress-NCP combine polled more votes than the Sena-BJP alliance but won fewer seats. Contesting separately despite being partners in the state government, they failed to dislodge the saffron alliance from BMC. The first-past-the-post system rewarded strategic alliances over popular vote strength.

Sena-BJP split and New Political Equations

The 2017 BMC elections marked a significant rupture in the backdrop of the BJP’s massive success at the national and state level in 2014 and its resultant aspirations for power at the BMC. For the first time in two decades, the saffron parties-- Shiv Sena and BJP contested the civic polls independently and the verdict led to a near-equal split: the Sena won 84 seats, the BJP 82. While both parties improved their vote shares, neither secured a clear mandate. The Congress suffered its worst defeat in decades while smaller parties failed to emerge as viable alternatives.

The Sena–BJP split in 2017 disrupted a long-standing saffron alliance, but the post-2022 period pushed fragmentation to an entirely new level. The vertical split in the Shiv Sena and the subsequent division within the NCP transformed formerly cohesive vote banks into fiercely competing factions, each claiming legacy, legitimacy and grassroots loyalty. At the same time, the BJP’s expanding organisational reach and electoral ambition in Mumbai has altered the balance of power, positioning it not merely as a challenger but as a central pole in a rapidly multipolar contest. With multiple factions of the same party competing against one another and with no pre-poll clarity on alliances, this BMC election is likely to be less a referendum on governance and more a complex negotiation of identities, loyalties and tactical voting.

This complexity is further intensified by the exceptionally long period of administrative rule in the BMC due to a delay in conducting elections since March 2022, which has placed civic governance outside electoral accountability for a considerable period. In the absence of elected corporators, everyday urban concerns such as gutter, meter, water, roads, health and living conditions have only accumulated without a clear political outlet, increasing voter frustration and expectations. It is no surprise then that public sentiment is volatile and unusually charged. The real question is not who will win the BMC but whether the city can move beyond its cycle of fragmented mandates and ever-shifting alliances towards more accountable and inclusive urban governance.

The author is a Mumbai-based researcher who works on Maharashtra Politics and Urban Informality. His doctoral work looks at the journey of Shiv Sena between 1985 and 2022.