Days after meeting Sharad Pawar, Maharashtra Congress chief holds deliberations with Uddhav Thackeray

Mumbai: In a move to consolidate the beleaguered opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi, state Congress President Harshavardhan Sapkal on Friday held deliberations with Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray couple of days after he met NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar.

After the 2024 Vidhan Sabha polls, the MVA is in a difficult situation numerically even as the ruling MahaYuti-NDA is wooing its leaders and Congress, which leads the MVA-I.N.D.I.A. opposition bloc is making all efforts to salvage the situation. 

The back to back meetings come at a time when a larger section of NCP (SP) leadership wants a merger with Ajit Pawar-headed NCP while Uddhav has expressed willingness to sink differences and work with MNS President Raj Thackeray. 

It may be recalled, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who calls the shots for the BJP, in presence of his two deputies - Eknath Shinde, the chief leader of Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar, the NCP President, had announced that they will go together in the polls. 

While both these meetings have been described as courtesy calls, the talks assume importance in the wake of the emerging political scenario in view of the forthcoming local bodies elections which 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, 289 panchayat samitis would go to polls. 

In fact, 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.

One of the crucial factors 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 3 to 5 wards each. In total, Mumbai has been divided into 24 administrative wards which are further divided into 227 civic electoral wards or constituencies. 

If one looks at the prestigious corporation of Mumbai, the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena has constantly been No. 1 in the BMC - 1997 (103 seats), 2002 (97 seats), 2007 (84 seats),  2012 (75 seats) and 2017 (84 seats). 

However, detailed analysis of party position in 2017 polls will show that  Shiv Sena leads the tally with 84 followed by Bharatiya Janata Party  (82) Congress (31), Nationalist Congress Party (9), Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (7), Samajwadi Party (6), All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (2) and others (6). This translates to the fact that the difference between the tally of Shiv Sena and BJP - the two former saffron allies - is just two seats.

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.