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Results for crucial BMC elections 2026 out today: What did exit polls project?
BMC election results: Polls for Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Asia's richest civic body, are taking place after a delay of three years.
Results for the crucial Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections 2026 will be known on Friday, January 16, along with the outcome of 28 other civic bodies of Maharashtra where voting took place on Thursday for the high-stakes battle.
Polls for BMC, Asia's richest civic body, are taking place after a delay of three years, and several political developments that saw key parties - Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to be precise - splitting into two and the Mahayuti alliance of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) along with the breakaway factions of NCP and Sena retaining power in the state 2024 assembly elections. Track BMC election results here
The BMC elections are seen as the fiercest battle of Mumbai because the body determine the governance of the city, India's financial capital.
What did BMC exit poll results say
The BMC elections 2026 were held for 227 seats, making 114 the majority mark a party or an alliance needs to secure to win the polls. The BJP-Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) are fighting together against the Shiv Sena (UBT)-MNS-NCP (SP) alliance and the Congress along with its ally, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), Rashtriya Samaj Paksh (RSP) among others.
According to Axis My India's predictions, the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance is poised to win 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.
The Axis My India also made vote-share predictions, projecting a 42% vote share for the Mahayuti allies (BJP 28%, Shiv Sena 14%). It predicted Shiv Sena (UBT) getting 24 per cent votes, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) 7 per cent and NCP (SP) one per cent. The three parties fought the polls as allies.
Another pollster - DV Research - projected also projected a comfortable win for BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, putting their expected seat tally between 107 and 122. The pollster projected 68-83 seats for the Thackeray brothers' alliance, 18-25 seats for the Congress-led alliance; and 8-15 seats for others.
According to the Janmat exit poll, the BJP and Shiv Sena are poised to win 138 seats; the Shiv Sena (UBT)-MNS-NCP (SP) alliance 62 seats; the Congress-led alliance 20 seats; and others 7 seats. The poll has predicted a margin of error of plus or minus five seats.
The Saam TV exit poll predicted 84 seats for the BJP, 35 for its ally Shiv Sena, 65 for Shiv Sena (UBT), two for NCP (SP), ten for MNS. It said the Congress-led alliance would get 23 seats, the NCP three seats and others five seats.
The undivided Shiv Sena had put up a strong show in the previous BMC elections held in 2017. The Shiv Sena won 84 seats in the last polls held in 2007 while the BJP won 82 seats.
This is the first BMC election following the split in Shiv Sena in 2022.
