Amit Shah sets ball rolling as BJP gears up for Maharashtra local body polls

Mumbai: BJP’s chief strategist and Union Home Minister Amit Shah has set the ball rolling for MahaYuti-NDA’s preparations for the forthcoming local bodies elections in Maharashtra even as the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi partners are keeping their cards close to their chest on alliance formulae.

The BJP and its two major allies—Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP—have formally declared to contest the polls together, barring some exceptions.

During his three-day visit to the state, Shah met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis individually as well as jointly with his two deputies to decide on the future course of action.

Shah’s meeting with the troika of Fadnavis, Shinde, Pawar assumes significance as many a times rifts between the allies have come out in the open.

The latest being Fadnavis having his way and inducting NCP’s Chhagan Bhujbal as the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Minister, which has made Ajit Pawar unhappy.

This comes at a time when there is a move for a possible merger of NCP with the Sharad Pawar-headed NCP (SP).

While the MVA, the I.N.D.I.A. opposition bloc in the state, has not yet made any joint declaration on the local bodies, state Congress chief Harshavardhan Sapkal held back-to-back meetings with NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray.

Another crucial factor that the MVA collectively faces is Uddhav Thackeray and his estranged cousin and MNS President Raj Thackeray expressing willingness to sink differences and work for the people of the state.

“In the next couple of months there will be a lot of churning in Maharashtra politics,” a veteran political observer noted.

The local bodies would include elections to all the 29 municipal corporations, which accounts for over 60 per cent of the state’s population.

Besides the 29 municipal corporations, 257 municipal councils, 26 zilla parishads, and 289 panchayat samitis would be going to polls.

All the nine municipal corporations of the MMR, including Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Kalyan Dombivli, Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Panvel, Mira-Bhayander and Vasai-Virar are due for polls.

Polls are also due for municipal corporations of Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nashik, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Nagpur and Amravati.

One of the crucial fights is the elections to the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the richest and one of the biggest civic bodies of Asia.

This year, the BMC presented a whopping Rs 74,427 crore budget for the financial year 2025-26. The total BMC reserves stand at Rs 81,744.42 crore. Such financials are bigger than that of some small states in India.

The BMC has been divided into seven zones which have three to five wards each. In total, Mumbai has been divided into 24 administrative wards which are further divided into 227 civic electoral wards or constituencies.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the NDA in Maharashtra got a drubbing. However, the BJP reversed the situation in the Vidhan Sabha polls and won 230-plus seats in the 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.

Now in the wake of Operation Sindoor and the way the Narendra Modi-led government handled the situation, there is a wave of support for the BJP.