Mumbai, Jan 14 (PTI) As Maharashtra heads to the elections on Thursday for 29 municipal corporations, the spotlight is firmly on Mumbai, where the BJP-led Mahayuti is locked in a keen battle with the united Thackeray cousins Raj and Uddhav for control of the cash-rich BMC.

Polling for the 2,869 seats spread across 893 wards will begin at 7.30 am and end at 5.30 pm. A total of 3.48 crore voters are eligible to decide the fate of 15,931 candidates. In the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), whose annual budget is over Rs 74, 400 crore, 1,700 candidates are vying for 227 seats in elections being held after a four-year delay.

Except for Mumbai, the other urban bodies have multi-member wards. Vote count will take place on January 16.

The polls, being held after a gap of several years due to various legal and administrative delays, are being seen as a "mini-assembly" battle that will test the ground strength of the split factions of the Shiv Sena and the NCP, as well as the electoral prowess of the ruling Mahayuti and the Congress.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who spearheaded the campaign for BJP-led Mahayuti, has predicted that MNS leader Raj Thackeray would emerge as the biggest loser in his alliance with cousin and Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav.

He dismissed the coming together of rival NCP factions in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad as merely a localised development.

The CM led the ruling alliance’s canvassing, traversing the state to campaign for candidates of the Mahayuti, which includes his party BJP and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.

These are the first BMC polls since the 2022 split in the Shiv Sena when Eknath Shinde broke away with a majority of the party’s MLAs. The undivided Shiv Sena held sway over India's richest civic body for 25 years (1997-2022).

More than 25,000 police personnel will be deployed across Mumbai to oversee elections to the BMC and vote counting.

In a significant political turn ahead of the elections, estranged cousins Uddhav and Raj Thackeray reunited after two decades in their bid to consolidate Marathi votes even as rival NCP factions forged a local alliance in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.

The Congress has asserted its presence in Mumbai by stepping out of the shadow of its Maha Vikas Aghadi allies - Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP). The Congress has joined hands with Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) and the Rashtriya Samaj Paksh in the state capital, even as it contests independently in Nagpur.

Elections to 29 municipal corporations are being held after a gap of over 6 years, with their terms having ended between 2020 and 2023. Of these, nine fall within the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

The cities and towns going to polls are: Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Mumbai, Solapur, Amravati, Akola, Nashik, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, Ulhasnagar, Thane, Chandrapur, Parbhani, Mira-Bhayandar, Nanded-Waghala, Panvel, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Latur, Malegaon, Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad, Jalgaon, Ahilyanagar, Dhule, Jalna and Ichalkaranji.

Fadnavis, along with his deputies Shinde and Ajit Pawar, campaigned across Maharashtra, while cousins Uddhav and Raj Thackeray concentrated their efforts on Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.

Telangana minister Mohammad Azharuddin, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Tamil Nadu BJP leader K Annamalai were also among the star campaigners.

Populist promises for women were key features of the manifestos of both Mahayuti and the Shiv Sena (UBT)-MNS.

The Mahayuti has promised a 50 per cent concession for women in BEST bus travel, while the Thackeray cousins have assured a Rs 1,500 monthly allowance for women domestic helps and a property tax waiver on houses up to 700 sq ft.

The Congress manifesto, by contrast, prioritises combating Mumbai’s pollution, upgrading the BEST fleet, and strengthening the city’s financial health.

The race for Mumbai’s mayoral post took centre stage in the campaign, with the BJP claiming that a Sena (UBT) victory could lead to a Muslim mayor, a charge the Uddhav Thackeray-led party countered by assuring voters of a Marathi mayor.

Fadnavis also guaranteed that the next mayor will be a "Hindu and Marathi".

In Mumbai, the BJP is contesting on 137 seats, the Shiv Sena 90, while the NCP is fighting separately on 94 seats. The Shiv Sena (UBT) has fielded 163 candidates, the MNS 52, the Congress 143 and the VBA 46. The Congress has fielded 1,263 candidates across the rest of the state.

Mumbai will see several prominent candidates battling it out for supremacy in civic polls. These include former MLA Sada Sarvankar's son and Shiv Sena candidate Samadhan, who is contesting from Ward 194 in Worli, the constituency of Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray.

Sada Sarvankar's daughter Priya Gurav Sarvankar is contesting from Ward 191 (Mahim). Saurabh Ghosalkar (Shiv Sena-UBT), son of former MLA Vinod Ghosalkar, is contesting from Ward 7 (Dahisar).

Nishikant Shinde (Shiv Sena-UBT), brother of Shiv Sena (UBT) MLC Sunil Shinde, is locked in a prestige battle in Central Mumbai. Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar's relatives Makrand, Harshita and Gauravi Shivalkar are in the fray in different wards in Colaba.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Sunil Prabhu's son and BJP leader Kirti Somaiya's son Neil are also in the fray. Former mayors who are once again in the poll ring include Kishori Pednekar, Shraddha Jadhav, Milind Vaidya and Vishakha Raut.

Several leaders who lost Assembly or parliamentary polls are also in the ring. Yamini Jadhav (Shiv Sena), who lost in the 2024 Lok Sabha and assembly polls, is contesting from Ward 209 (Byculla). Praveena Morajkar (Shiv Sena-UBT), an ex-corporator and assembly poll candidate, is contesting from Ward 169 (Kurla). PTI MR GK RSY