MUMBAI: If Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray eye to win the Asia’s largest civic body (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) polls, the leaders have to repeat Shiv Sena (UBT)'s 2024 Lok Sabha performance.
It will help them to win as many as 113 seats out of 227 in the BMC polls.
However, Shiv Sena (UBT) had won the three seats out of six Lok Sabha seats while it lost one seat, by 34 votes in Mumbai. Congress's vote base -- Muslim and Dalit -- and Sharad Pawar’s supporters from the western Maharashtra region who stay in Mumbai, helped to secure several seats.
MVA was successful in restricting the BJP and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena to one seat each only in the financial capital.
In the BMC polls scheduled on January 15 of next year, Congress has refused to be part of the Thackeray brother alliance, over differences in decent space and number of seats. Also, Raj Thackeray's stand against North India is considered problematic for Congress’s North Indian voters.
However, the silver lining for Uddhav Thackeray is, Raj Thackeray-led MNS has a seven per cent vote share in Mumbai, which will help them both to fill the gap caused by Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Congress, but that is not enough at all, as there is still a gap of six per cent.
Thackerays has to go an extra mile by addressing as many rallies as possible, galvanising the ground network and utilising funds. Only then ther is a possiblity, that they will be able to swing the verdict in their favour.
Despite Thackeray's alliance, the BJP is unfazed and is comfortable on the ground as it has 27 per cent vote share in Mumbai, and even DCM Eknath Shinde will pull in at least five per cent vote share.
Most likely, the BJP and Shiv Sena will march towards a historic win in this closely contested BMC election.
Shinde led Shiv Sena has won the six state assembly seats in Mumbai, while BJP had won 15, and DCM Ajit Pawar led NCP has won one seat; therefore, arithmetically, BJP and Shiv Sena are unperturbed.
The split in Maha Vikas Aghadi has boosted the confidence of the BJP and its Gujarati, Marwari and North Indian vote bank in Mumbai remains unaffected. However, the opposition are getting divided into multiple forces.
Meanwhile, if Muslim and Dalit votes get divided among the Thackerays, Congress, NCP SP, Samajwadi Party, MIM, then it will be difficult to repeat the Lok Sabha’s template again in BMC polls.