BMC ELECTIONS 2026 (PHOTO: X)
BMC Election Result: After a four-year hiatus, Mumbai is finally getting a mayor again. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is announcing its election results this Friday.
The city’s last mayor, Kishori Pednekar from the undivided Shiv Sena, served from November 2019 until March 2022. The last civic polls happened back in February 2017, and the corporators’ five-year term ended in March 2022.
Since then, the Maharashtra government put an administrator in charge. Right now, the municipal commissioner is handling that job.
Here’s how Mumbai picks its mayor. Every five years, people vote to elect corporators for their wards. A party or an alliance needs at least 114 seats to form a majority in the 227-member BMC.
Whoever grabs that majority gets to choose the mayor. It works much like picking a prime minister or chief minister; the winning group decides who takes the top spot.
This year, the race is crowded. 1,700 candidates are in the fray, 879 women and 821 men. The Mahayuti alliance, which rules Maharashtra, is running without Ajit Pawar’s NCP faction.
Pawar’s group is going solo. On the other side, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) partners have split too, but Shiv Sena (UBT) has teamed up with Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).
Back in 2017, the undivided Shiv Sena put up a tough fight and bagged 84 seats, while the BJP got 82. This is the first BMC election since the big Shiv Sena split in 2022.
A look at top candidates in the BMC Elections 2026:
Kishori Pednekar (Shiv Sena – UBT)
She’s running from Ward 193 (Khar-Santacruz). Pednekar is a familiar name — she’s the former mayor and a big player in city politics.
Tejasvee Ghosalkar (BJP)
He’s expected to contest from Ward 179 (Bandra West). Ghosalkar made it to the BJP’s first list of candidates.
Ravi Raja (BJP)
Likely to run from Ward 205 (Goregaon West). Raja is a senior BJP leader and knows the BMC well.
Harshwardhan Sapkal (Congress)
He’s connected to Ward 214 (Andheri East). Sapkal represents the Congress-MVA push in the suburbs.
Rahul Shewale camp nominee (Shiv Sena – Shinde faction)
Look for their candidate in Ward 224 (Mulund West). This seat is a key battleground for the Mahayuti alliance in North-East Mumbai.
A number of exit poll forecasts have indicated that Mahayuti will win the BMC polls. Axis My India projects that the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance will secure 131-151 seats; the Shiv Sena (UBT)-MNS-NCP (SP) alliance 58-68 seats; the Congress-VBA-RSP alliance 12-16 seats and others 6-12 seats as per their predictions.
The Axis My India also gave vote share estimates and gave the Mahayuti allies (BJP 28%, Shiv Sena 14%), a 42% vote share. It forecasted the vote of 24 per cent by Shiv Sena (UBT), 7 per cent by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and 1 per cent by NCP (SP). The three parties competed against the polls as allies.
Even another pollster, DV Research, estimated a comfortable victory to the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, with their projected number not less than 107 or not more than 122 seats.
The pollster estimated 68-83 seats to the alliance of Thackeray brothers, 18-25 seats to the congress led alliance, and 8-15 to the others.
Janmat exit poll states that the BJP and Shiv Sena will win 138 seats; the Shiv Sena (UBT)-MNS-NCP (SP) alliance will win 62 seats; the Congress-led alliance will win 20 seats and others will have 7 seats. The poll has forecasted a deviation of five seats or more.
The Saam TV exit poll gave the BJP 84 seats, Shiv Sena 35 seats, Shiv Sena (UBT) 65 seats, NCP (SP) two seats and MNS 10 seats. According to it the Congress-led coalition would have 23 seats, the NCP three and the rest five.
One of the biggest municipal budgets in Asia are controlled by the BMC and therefore these elections are not only important to Mumbai, but also to the entire political environment in Maharashtra. The result will affect the infrastructure development, the national health systems, and the urban development in years to come.
With the campaigning in its last stages, all eyes are still on these 5 key candidates and wards that would determine who would be running Mumbai next.
ALSO READ: BMC Election 2026: Check Full List of Winners and Losers in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation 2026
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