MUMBAI: The man who started his political career as a corporator in Nagpur Municipal Corporation later went on to play a key role in the BJP’s victory in Maharashtra in the 2014 and 2024 Assembly elections.
That man then went on to become the Chief Minister.
Now, Devendra Fadnavis added another feather to his cap as he put the BJP on course for victory in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections and wins across other civic bodies in the state. Under his leadership, the BJP is set to win several municipal corporation elections, including the BMC, Pune, Navi Mumbai, Nashik, Nagpur, Jalgaon, and Kalyan-Dombivli, among others.
With the BJP poised to take control of Asia’s richest civic body, the result has strengthened Fadnavis’ political standing, placing him in discussions as a potential prime ministerial face for the saffron party.
For the BJP, the most significant victory is the BMC.
The undivided Shiv Sena ruled the civic body for nearly 35 years, with the BJP as a junior partner until 2017. However, in the 2017 BMC elections, the BJP chose to contest on its own. It bagged 82 of the 227 seats, falling just two seats short of the Uddhav Thackeray-led party. At the time, both the BJP and the Shiv Sena were in power at the Centre and in Maharashtra.
Fadnavis took this opportunity to strengthen his party’s presence. He steadily expanded the BJP’s footprint across the country’s financial capital and laid the groundwork for the 2026 BMC elections. In addition to focusing on the Hindutva agenda, Fadnavis also projected himself as a development-oriented leader. During this period, metro services were launched in Mumbai. The Atal Setu connecting Mumbai and Navi Mumbai was completed. Work progressed on the underground coastal road, and the redevelopment of the BDD chawls was taken forward.
Besides consolidating traditional vote banks of the BJP, among Gujaratis and North Indians, he also managed to reach out to South Indian voters after Raj Thackeray’s jibe at Tamil Nadu BJP leader K Annamalai.
At the same time, he sought to dent the Thackeray camp’s hold over the Marathi vote bank. Projecting himself as another strong Marathi manoos, he promised housing through redevelopment, homes for slum dwellers, along with jobs and security.
Shiv Sena’s core strength lay in its local shakhas and its system of self-governance. These networks traditionally helped the party mobilise voters in every BMC election.
To counter this, Fadnavis, with support from the BJP’s Mumbai unit, opened up as many party offices and ensured the appointment of three shakha heads - one man, one woman, and one youth under 40.
Over time, this helped groom leadership at the local level, which helped draw voters towards the BJP.
At the same time, deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena weakened the shakha base of Shiv Sena (UBT) by poaching local shakha heads, corporators, and prominent leaders.
Shinde provided them with resources, with a clear aim of defeating the Thackeray camp at any cost.
Fadnavis’s role in the party's BMC victory and the prospect of a BJP mayor in Mumbai will stand out as a major landmark in his career, as it was seen as unthinkable to break the Thackeray stronghold in Mumbai.
The BJP was born in Mumbai, and its late prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had once expressed a desire for the party to come to power in the city. The BJP’s success in Mumbai is now being seen as a tribute to Vajpayee.
The win also strengthens Fadnavis’s path to Delhi as he is projected as a leader who incorporates development with BJP’s Hindutva agenda, who is also a blue-eyed boy of the RSS.
With the RSS having earlier missed an opportunity with another favoured leader, Union minister Nitin Gadkari, it is unlikely to let this moment pass without placing its man in the right position at the right time.
