The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections are scheduled to take place on January 15, 2026. The counting will be held on January 16. The Mumbai civic body has published the final ward boundaries in the Maharashtra Government Gazette. The total number of wards has been set back to 227. The last BMC elections took place in 2017. The BMC’s term ended on March 7, 2022. Since then, the civic body has been run by an administrator.
Eknath Shinde versus Uddhav Thackeray: Who has how many former corporators?
The Shiv Sena split in June 2022 after Eknath Shinde rebelled against then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. The political crisis led to the fall of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government. It also triggered a legal fight over the party’s name and symbol, which were eventually awarded to Shinde.
2017 BMC elections
In the 2017 BMC elections, the Shiv Sena won 84 corporators. After the results, four independent corporators joined Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, taking the total to 88. Later, six MNS corporators joined, raising the number to 94.
By the end of the 2022 term, five more corporators were added through caste verification and by-elections, increasing the total to 99. Of these, 44 former corporators joined Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, while 55 former corporators remain with Thackeray’s Shiv Sena.
Civic Polls Across Maharashtra
Mumbai will elect 227 corporators, one from each ward. In the other 28 civic bodies, voters will choose between three and five corporators per ward, depending on the corporation.
This will be the first municipal corporation election in Maharashtra after the Shiv Sena split in 2022 and the NCP split in 2023. These splits changed the state’s political landscape.
Mumbai Civic Body a Key Battleground
The BMC, Asia’s richest municipal corporation with a budget exceeding Rs 74,000 crore for 2025–26, is seen as the most crucial prize. The undivided Shiv Sena ruled the BMC for over two decades until 2017, with the BJP as a junior partner.
