Thackeray versus Shinde: ‘Final battle’ for Marathi manoos turns fierce in Marathi-dominated areas

The Shinde Sena has 91 seats in the current elections, of which the party has fielded 86 candidates against the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the MNS. “The strategy was simple. We wanted to divide the Marathi voters, and hence the party is contesting the polls in all the Marathi pockets,” revealed a Shiv Sena insider

MUMBAI: When the votes are counted today, 68 seats spread over the city’s Marathi pockets will decide which of the two Shiv Sena factions wrests the title of being the “real Shiv Sena”—Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena (UBT) or Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena. In a direct fight in these 68 seats, polling day was the culmination of the fierce battle between the two, with Thackeray doing everything in his power to retain his last bastion and Shinde leaving no stone unturned to decimate him with the help of the BJP.

iMumbai, India - January 15, 2026: Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, along with his family members, poses for photographs after casting his vote in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections at a polling booth in Bandra in Mumbai, India, on Thursday, January 15, 2025. (Photo by Satish Bate/ Hindustan Times) (Hindustan Times)

In the last elections, the undivided Shiv Sena had won 84 seats while the BJP got 82, leading to their partnership in the BMC. But following the split engineered by Shinde in 2022 and his subsequent alliance with the BJP, the deputy chief minister has been helping the party prepare to prise the reins of the BMC from the Thackeray family. He has inducted around 50 to 60 former corporators from the Shiv Sena (UBT), making the fight tougher for the latter.

During Shinde’s relentless offensive, many Sena (UBT) senior leaders from Mumbai also shifted their allegiance to the rival party, which resulted in diminishing Thackeray’s influence in the city’s political landscape. The circumstances forced him to think of an alternative, following which he reached out to Raj Thackeray. To counter the Hindutva sentiments pushed by the Shiv Sena-BJP, the cousins termed the BMC polls as the final battle for Marathi-speaking people.

Marathi pockets such as Lalbaug, Parel, Dadar, Byculla, Worli, Bhandup, Vikhroli, Prabhadevi and Andheri, meanwhile, participated enthusiastically in the “final battle”, with a strong voter turnout in the morning hours. Many elderly voters came early to the polling booths, expressing happiness over the reunion of the Thackeray cousins and voting in support of Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray’s legacy.

Ramesh Page, a 79-year-old voter from Parel, said, “I had actively participated in Shiv Sena protests in my youth. Like many others, I was unhappy when the Thackeray cousins split and had always hoped for their reunion.” While Page supports Narendra Modi at the Centre, he believes that for local body elections, people should elect leaders from their own region.

Wards 192 and 193, which include areas like Dadar and Shivaji Park, the traditional stronghold of the Thackeray family, witnessed a heavy turnout in the morning. At the Kohinoor Parking polling booth, voters were seen standing in queues for nearly an hour even around noon. A similar situation was observed in Ward 200 at Dadar’s Shindewadi. A polling officer told HT that residents of Shindewadi’s Shivneri building were at the booth as early as 7.30 am, and of its 787 registered voters, 525 had voted by 5 pm.

Bhanudas Mane, a 49-year-old voter from Lalbaug, said, “While people were happy about the reunion of the Thackeray cousins, there was dissatisfaction over the last-minute political moves during ticket distribution by various parties.” Mane added that as a Marathi voter, he preferred supporting Marathi candidates with a good track record rather than voting strictly along party lines.

The electoral battleground turned critical in around six wards where both the Senas were in a direct confrontation, as there were no other candidates in the fray barring one independent in Chembur and three in Parel. These were Ward 3 (Dahisar East), 6 (Dahisar East), 153 (Chembur), 191 (Mahim), 198 (Lalbaug) and 203 (Parel).

Marathi voter turnout was also noticeable in Wards 63, 61 and 59 in the Andheri and Versova areas. However, in some localities such as Ghatkopar East, where voters felt there were no strong candidates, turnout remained low. At polling booths in Ward 131, only a small number of voters were seen even around 4 pm.

The voting happened across 227 wards in Mumbai, with around 1,700 candidates contesting. A total of 1,03,44,315 citizens are eligible to vote in these elections. This includes 55,16,707 male voters, 48,26,509 female voters, and 1,099 voters from the other category.