The Mumbai civic body or the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the country’s richest corporation, will go to polls on January 15, with counting of votes on January 16.
The State Election Commission on Monday announced the poll schedule for BMC, along with 28 other civic corporations. The elections for all 29 corporations, including Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, and Kalyan-Dombivli, will be held in a single phase. The code of conduct has come into effect from today.
Voting will take place in 227 wards in Mumbai and 111 wards in Navi Mumbai.
The BMC elections are considered crucial for political supremacy in Mumbai. This election will see a tight contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde), Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), along with the Congress, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), both Ajit and Sharad Pawar group.
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Election schedule
Nomination filing: December 23 to 30
Scrutiny: December 31
Withdrawal: January 2, 2026
Final list of candidate and distribution of symbols: January 3, 2026
Voting: January 15, 2026
Counting of votes: January 16, 2026.
What’s at stake in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai?
Thackerays vs Shinde, BJP: The Thackerays’ reputation is on the line in the Mumbai municipal elections. There is a possibility that Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and Raj Thackeray’s MNS may contest together. The Thackeray brothers are up against the BJP and Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena. In the last election in 2017, even though they were in alliance at the state level, BJP and Shiv Sena contested separately in Mumbai.