How the Sena (UBT)-MNS alliance has forced the BJP to rediscover the Marathi Manoos

BJP's strategy in Mumbai shifts as nativist politics resurges, forcing it to focus on Marathi identity amid the Thackeray alliance's strong local appeal.

MUMBAI: For the last decade, the BJP’s rise in Mumbai rested on a crucial political assumption - that the city had outgrown nativist politics. Development, infrastructure and a broad Hindutva appeal rather than nativism were widely seen as the new idioms of urban power. This postulate is now being seriously tested. The Thackeray alliance has decisively re-centred Marathi asmita in Mumbai’s civic politics, forcing the BJP to realign its strategy and place the Marathi Manoos at its centre.

A protest was held against Shiv Sena MLA Prakash Surve in Dahisar. Photo by Azim Tamboli

Nativism and Marathi pride have long shaped BMC elections, particularly since the rise of the Shiv Sena in the 1960s. Bal Thackeray’s enduring appeal, often framed around preventing Mumbai from ‘falling into the hands of outsiders’, mobilised Marathi-speaking voters, who constitute roughly 38% of the city’s population. This politics of belonging became the bedrock of Sena dominance in the civic body. The BJP’s break from the Sena in 2017, however, marked a turning point. That election saw the BJP’s vote share surge from 8.47% in 2012 to 27.14%, signalling its arrival as a formidable urban force independent of the Sena.

Subsequent political developments led to expectations that the BJP would approach these elections with a centrally driven narrative - big-ticket star campaigners, a development-plus-Hindutva plank and a relative sidelining of regional identity. The party’s role in engineering a split in the Shiv Sena and aligning with Shinde appeared to further consolidate its might. Yet, a series of recent political developments has compelled the BJP to recalibrate its approach in Mumbai.

A key factor has been the recent local body elections across Maharashtra in which the Shinde-led Shiv Sena emerged as an exceptional player, underlining the continuing power of local leadership and grassroots mobilisation. The resurgence of Marathi assertion against the three-language formula also reignited anxieties around linguistic marginalisation.

Against this backdrop, the Thackeray alliance and their nativist appeal poses a direct challenge to the BJP’s big ambition. By consolidating Marathi voters through a sharp critique of ‘outsiders’ and a Centre-driven political agenda, the alliance threatens to reclaim a space the BJP believed it had transcended. The BJP’s own electoral data underlines why this matters. It secured 117 municipal presidents’ posts across the recent councils and nagar panchayat polls but these victories were unevenly distributed. Vidarbha accounted for a disproportionate share of BJP dominance. In contrast, regions like Konkan continued to see strong, and in some cases superior, performances by the Shiv Sena.

The Thackeray alliance has also reshaped dynamics within the Mahayuti. With the Shinde faction emerging as the second-largest player in local bodies and facing pressure from a reunited Thackeray front, it engaged in tough bargaining with the BJP over seat-sharing in key municipal corporations, including Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan-Dombivli.

BJP’s ‘Marathi centric’ agenda

Data shows that the proportion of Marathi candidates fielded by the BJP has risen from 45% in 2017 to 68% in 2026. Similarly, its announcement of having a Hindu mayor to take a jibe against Uddhav Thackeray and allegations of Muslim appeasement severely backfired after the Thackerays reinforced how their mayor will be a Marathi manoos. The BJP had to immediately course correct and say that they too will have a Marathi mayor.

Campaigning and social media outreach by the BJP suggests repeated promises that the party will fight for local issues of the Marathi manoos. This was seen particularly in Central Mumbai, historically a Sena stronghold. In 2017, Sena won 12 out of the 18 seats in Girangaon (Lalbaug-Parel-Worli-Sewri) whereas BJP could win only one seat. The BJP had no corporator in the Worli and Sewri Assembly constituencies especially in G-South and F-South (seven electoral wards each). Interestingly, the Mahayuti began its poll campaign for 2026 from Worli and Devendra Fadnavis subsequently promising timely housing for residents of BDD chawls. A senior BJP leader in the western suburbs said that the party is refraining from being branded as the one with an ‘outsider agenda.’

Equally significant is the way in which the BJP has tweaked its campaign style. Irrespective of the Shiv Sena’s organisational split, its model of urban governance anchored in local shakhas, mediation and patronage networks remains uncontested. The BJP is now consciously emulating this approach with door-to-door campaigns and hyperlocal, issue-driven rallies replacing the spectacle of Modi-Shah-Yogi-centric mobilisations.

Opportunities and limitations

The BJP’s might at the centre and the state, the resources it holds over the larger political machinery and its combined strength with Shinde definitely means that it has great prospects in the BMC polls. Yet, the realignment in its narrative and approach also reveals a vulnerability. The revival of Marathi Manoos politics, particularly through the Uddhav-Raj axis, threatens to restore that emotional and cultural connect of the Marathi manoos with the Shiv Sena. BJP’s strategic shift is testimony that development promises and religious polarisation alone cannot substitute for nativism and local agendas. Despite demographic shifts, redevelopment pressures and polarising narratives, Marathi identity and the figure of the Marathi Manoos remains central to electoral winnability in Mumbai.

*Dr. Sanjay Patil 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.