The Mahayuti alliance, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, is storming ahead in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections, according to trends.With leads in over 110 wards across the city, the alliance appears on course to end the three-decade reign of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena. The BMC has 227 wards and the halfway mark is 114. Nine candidates have been declared official winners so far. Of these, the Shiv Sena has won 4, the BJP 3 and Congress one ward. AIMIM also registered one victory in BMC.
The elections for BMC and 28 local bodies of Maharashtra were held on Thursday. Mumbai recorded 52.94 % turnout in elections. This is second best tally since the year 1992. There were 12,442,373 number of who elected 227 ward members. As many as 1,700 candidates are in the fray for 227 seats in the key BMC elections.In the last BMC election held in 2017, the then united Shiv Sena emerged as the leading party by winning 84 seats, while the Bhartiya Janata Party secured 82 seats, followed by the Congress with 31 seats, the Nationalist Congress Party with 9 seats, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena with 7 seats, the Samajwadi Party with 6 seats, the Independent with 5 seats, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen with 2 seats and the Akhil Bharatiya Sena with 1 seats.
Union Minister Ramdas Athawale expressed confidence that the Mayor of Mumbai will come from the Mahayuti alliance, saying most seats in the BMC elections are going to the Mahayuti alliance. Speaking to ANI, Athawale said, "Today, vote counting is underway for the municipal elections across Maharashtra. As far as Mumbai is concerned, Uddhav Thackeray was in power for 25-30 years. He was in power because he was in an alliance with the BJP. Today, the BJP is the number one party in the country."