In a stark blow to its urban stronghold, Congress hit a new low in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections on Friday, set to win just 15 of the 227 seats — down from 31 in 2017. The party contested 152 seats, leaving the rest to allies Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, and the Republican Party of India (Gavai faction).
Analysts said the alliance with the Prakash Ambedkar-led VBA, RSP, and RPI (Gavai) failed to boost the party, calling it a strategic misstep rather than a vote multiplier.
As the BJP and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena move to wrest control of the BMC from Uddhav Thackeray’s faction, Congress has been relegated to a marginal player in Mumbai politics.
Ahead of the polls, Congress chose not to ally with its Maha Vikas Aghadi partners, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP). It feared that joining hands with the Shiv Sena (UBT) and Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena would alienate its North Indian and minority vote banks.
The gamble appears to have backfired. With the BJP consolidating non-Marathi Hindu votes and the Thackeray factions holding onto anti-BJP support, Congress was caught squeezed in the middle.
In many traditional strongholds, the Congress lost ground to both the BJP and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena due to linguistic and religious polarisation and counter-polarisation.
Political observers also attributed the Congress' rout to chronic infighting and a lack of a cohesive campaign narrative.
While the BJP and the Thackeray cousins ran high-octane campaigns, focused on infrastructure and Marathi identity, respectively, the Congress struggled to find a coherent theme.
"The Congress in Mumbai has become a party of individual pocket-boroughs rather than a unified force," said a political analyst.
"Without a clear face to take on the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti or a distinct agenda beyond 'opposing everyone,' it failed to inspire even its traditional supporters," he said.
More alarming for the Congress is the apparent shift in its core constituency. Preliminary data suggests a significant fragmentation of the Muslim and Dalit votes. AIMIM, Samajwadi party and the NCP led by Ajit Pawar cut into the Congress's traditional support base.
The result is likely to trigger a fresh round of demands for a leadership change. The party is currently led by MP Varsha Gaikwad in the city.
For a party that once gave Mumbai its mayors and shaped its post-independence growth, the slide to 15 seats is not just an electoral setback but a signal of its growing urban irrelevance.
The alliance with the VBA was expected to consolidate Dalit votes for the Congress, but Prakash Ambedkar's party lacked booth-level machinery and resources required for transfer of votes, observers said.
