BJP-led Mahayuti aims to win 150-plus seats in BMC polls: Maharashtra minister Shelar

Mumbai, Dec 16 (PTI) The BJP-led Mahayuti has set an ambitious target of winning more than 150 seats in the January 15 elections to the 227-member Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Maharashtra minister Ashish Shelar declared on Tuesday.

Talking to reporters here, the senior BJP leader asserted Mumbai would have a Marathi mayor post-polls, which are being held after a delay of nearly four years.

"We have finalised the Mahayuti formula and even the numbers. Our target is to win 150-plus corporator seats in the BMC," Shelar emphasised.

A meeting of Mahayuti leaders held on Tuesday focused on devising strategies to achieve this goal, he noted.

"We will sit again in the next couple of days to take these discussions forward," the minister maintained.

Without taking name of Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray, Shelar remarked some people had already started putting up posters, admitting their "defeat" in the civic polls, and claimed Mumbai's citizens had decided to embrace change in the next month's polls.

The BJP minister dismissed claims about separating Mumbai from Maharashtra as false.

"Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis clarified this during the just concluded winter session of the state legislature in Nagpur," he insisted.

Shelar ruled out any alliance with NCP leader and former minister Nawab Malik, who is in-charge of his party for the BMC elections.

"We will not form any alliance with Nawab Malik, and I have conveyed this clearly to NCP leaders," he asserted.

The NCP is a constituent of the Mahayuti alliance which consists of the BJP and the Shiv Sena.

"Mumbai's mayor will be a Marathi person. I challenge Uddhav Thackeray to disclose from which lane or 'mohalla' (locality) his mayor will come," Shelar stated.

The long-delayed elections to the BMC, Asia's largest civic body with a budget of Rs 74,000 crore in 2025-26, will be held on January 15 and results will be declared the next day.

The undivided Shiv Sena ruled the BMC for nearly two decades with the BJP as its junior ally. PTI ND RSY