For BMC election: Sena UBT, BJP lose 30% of seats; Shinde Sena emerges lucky in lottery for ward reservation

The previous civic election took place in 2017. When the term of the elected representatives ended on March 7, 2022, out of the 227 total corporators in the BMC, 88 were from the Shiv Sena (undivided), 80 from the BJP, 31 from the Congress, nine from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), seven from Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), two from AIMIM and six from the Samajwadi Party. In the past three years, several candidates, largely from the Shiv Sena (UBT), and Congress switched sides to join the BJP or Shinde-led Sena.

As of now, while 83 of the incumbent corporators belong to the BJP, 58 are affiliated to Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and 56 are affiliated with Shiv Sena (UBT).

As per the lottery result of 61 seats for the OBC category, while 18 seats or 32.14% of the 56 seats are now reserved for OBC candidates for the upcoming civic elections, Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde has lost only 9 or 15.51% of the 58 seats to reservation. Meanwhile, the BJP is set to lose out 25 or 30.12% of its 83 seats to reservation.

Several prominent candidates who lost their seats include Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Milind Vaidya (182-Dadar) and Vishwanath Mahadeshwar (87-Bandra East), whose seats went to Other Backward Classes (OBC) candidates. Both Vaidya and Mahadeshwar served as Mumbai’s mayors between 1996-97 and 2017-19, resepectively. In May 2023, Mahadeshwar passed away due to a cardiac arrest.

Former Congress corporator Ravi Raja, who was the leader of the Opposition in the BMC during 2017-2022, also lost his seat (176-Sion) to OBC candidate. Raja joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in October 2024.

Three-time Congress corporator Asif Zakaria from Bandra (West) also lost his seat (101-Bandra) after it got reserved for woman candidate.

Shiv Sena’s Sandhya Doshi, who served as the chairperson in BMC’s education committee during 2017-2022, lost her seat (Borivali-18) to OBC reservation. Doshi was the first among former corporators to join the Shinde Sena following the vertical split in the Shiv Sena.

Former BJP corporator Neil Somaiya (108-Mulund), the son of former BJP MP and senior BJP leader Kirit Somaiya, and former Shiv Sena (UBT) corporator Tejasvee Ghosalkar, the wife of former Sena corporator Abhishek Ghosalkar (1-Dahisar), were among those who lost their seats to OBC reservation. In July 2024, Abhishek was shot dead in his office by his political rival, Mauris Noronha.

Former BJP corporator Harshita Narwekar, the sister-in-law of Rahul Narwekar, the Speaker in the state Assembly, also lost her Cuffe Parade (226) seat to OBC reservation.

Speaking with The Indian Express, leaders from across political parties stated that since the process of lottery is conducted in front of the public, questioning its transparency would be unfair to the administration.

“The entire process is carried out openly, therefore, it will be unfair to challenge the results. However, in the past three years, people has seen how the BJP-led ruling administration has been using the BMC’s finances for its own benefit, depriving Mumbaikars of their basic necessities. They will respond to this in the upcoming the elections,” Kishori Pednekar, former mayor and senior leader from Sena UBT, told The Indian Express.

On the change in the reservation of his ward, Asif Zakaria, former Congress corporator, said, “It is unfortunate but luck plays an important part in the lottery process. The party will analyse the ward reservations and will take a call on the road ahead. On the basis of their directives, further decisions will be made.”

BJP former corporator and group leader for the party in BMC, Vinod Mishra, said, “Even though we have some of our primary seats due to reservation, we are not worried as there are several potential candidates in our party and the brass will allocate tickets only on the basis of individual performance.”

The lottery process

After a hiatus of 44 months, the BMC is gearing up for the much-awaited civic election likely to be held in January 2026, for which the lottery was conducted at the Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir in Bandra (West). The numbers of municipal wards were dropped in a transparent box, which was later drawn by schoolchildren. The entire process was live streamed and was carried out in front of Mumbai municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani, who is also the state-appointed administrator in the BMC.

Around 27 per cent or 61 of the total seats will be reserved for OBC candidates, around 15 of for Scheduled Caste candidates, and two for Scheduled Tribe candidates. These seats are bifurcated equally between male and female candidates from each of these categories.

The lottery is a major deciding factor for political parties in allocating seats to candidates, since it determines how many of the total number of wards will be reserved for women candidates or candidates from backward communities.

The civic elections, which were to be held in March 2022, were deferred following the Supreme Court (SC) decision to scrap the Other Backward Class (OBC) quota in local body elections. In Mumbai, there was an additional issue of reorganisation of the municipal ward boundaries, that led to the deferment of the civic polls.