Results of the crucial Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections will be declared on Friday, January 16, along with outcomes of elections to 28 other civic bodies across Maharashtra where voting was held on Thursday in a high-stakes political contest.
The BMC polls—held after a delay of nearly three years—are particularly significant as they come after major political churn in the state. Both the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have split into rival factions since the last civic polls, while the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance, comprising the BJP and breakaway factions of the Sena and NCP, retained power in the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections.
The BMC, Asia’s richest civic body, is seen as Mumbai’s most fiercely contested political battleground, as it controls governance of India’s financial capital.
What exit polls predicted
The 2026 BMC elections were held for 227 seats, with 114 seats required to secure a majority. The BJP and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena contested the polls together against the Shiv Sena (UBT)-MNS-NCP (SP) alliance, while the Congress fought alongside allies such as the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) and Rashtriya Samaj Paksh (RSP).
According to Axis My India, the BJP–Shiv Sena alliance is projected to win between 131 and 151 seats. The Shiv Sena (UBT)-MNS-NCP (SP) alliance is expected to secure 58–68 seats, the Congress-led alliance 12–16 seats, and others between 6 and 12 seats.
Axis My India also projected a combined vote share of 42 per cent for the Mahayuti allies—28 per cent for the BJP and 14 per cent for the Shiv Sena. It estimated vote shares of 24 per cent for Shiv Sena (UBT), 7 per cent for the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), and 1 per cent for the NCP (SP), which contested the elections together.
Another pollster, DV Research, also predicted a comfortable win for the BJP–Shiv Sena alliance, estimating their seat tally at 107–122. It projected 68–83 seats for the Thackeray brothers’ alliance, 18–25 seats for the Congress-led bloc, and 8–15 seats for others.
The Janmat exit poll projected 138 seats for the BJP–Shiv Sena alliance, 62 seats for the Shiv Sena (UBT)-MNS-NCP (SP) alliance, 20 seats for the Congress-led alliance, and seven seats for others, with a margin of error of plus or minus five seats.
Meanwhile, Saam TV’s exit poll predicted 84 seats for the BJP and 35 for its ally Shiv Sena, while Shiv Sena (UBT) was projected to win 65 seats. It estimated 10 seats for the MNS, two for the NCP (SP), 23 for the Congress-led alliance, three for the NCP, and five for others.
In the previous BMC elections held in 2017, the undivided Shiv Sena had emerged as the single-largest party with 84 seats, while the BJP had won 82 seats.
