India, Jan. 17 -- The BJP and its allies, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, and, to a lesser extent, the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are poised to win 23 of Maharashtra's 29 municipal corporations, suggesting that their landslide win in the assembly elections last November was no fluke. The Mahayuti, a coalition of the BJP, the Shiv Sena, and the NCP, won 235 of the 288 seats in the assembly in that election, reversing the losses of the general polls in May, and indicating that the political ground in the state was shifting in favour of the BJP. This trend has held true, and the BJP is now in a commanding position across the state (it fought alone in 16 of the 29 corporations and was leading in 13 of them as of 10 pm), just as the Congress was in the first four decades after Independence: The Congress from being a hegemon has been reduced to an also-ran in Maharashtra. As for the state capital, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will now have a BJP administration, ending a quarter century of dominance by the united Shiv Sena. Indeed, India's financial capital will have, for the first time in many decades, a triple-engine administration led by the BJP in all tiers of government - at the local body, in the state, and at the Centre. The outcome will resonate beyond Mumbai and influence political preferences. One, the BJP's gains in Maharashtra have come at the expense of two regional outfits that have been pivotal to state politics, the united Shiv Sena and the united NCP. Mumbai has been the cornerstone of Shiv Sena politics since Bal Thackeray founded the outfit in 1966. The Shiv Sena has since split multiple times, and BMC has slipped out of the party's hands in the birth centenary year of its founder. To be sure, the Shiv Sena (UBT) has itself done reasonably well in the Marathi-dominated areas, suggesting that its polarising campaign around regional identity continues to resonate in pockets. But, in electoral terms, the Shiv Sena flag and legacy, outside of Mumbai city, is now firmly with Eknath Shinde: His party did not do too well in BMC but outsmarted the Uddhav Thackeray faction in the larger Mumbai Metropolitan Region, which includes corporations such as Thane. Meanwhile, the NCP factions have bitten the dust in its strongholds in western Maharashtra. The BJP is a clear winner here, raising questions about the appeal of the regional outfit that had carried with it the old Congress base centred around sugar cooperatives. Ajit Pawar, deputy CM in the Mahayuti government, steered his NCP to ally with uncle Sharad Pawar's faction (NCP-SP), a constituent of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), an alliance of the Shiv Sena-UBT, NCP-SP, and Congress. The MVA was non-existent in the municipal polls, with each party going its own way. This leaves the BJP in a commanding position, and the Opposition diminished and in disarray. The win raises the stature of CM Devendra Fadnavis, who led the campaign in the state. He broke the Shiv Sena and the NCP, forcing the collapse of the MVA government in 2022, won the assembly election in 2024, and has now swept the local polls. For the Opposition, Maharashtra is a story of lost opportunities. A Shiv Sena (UBT)-Congress alliance may have turned the BMC polls into a close contest. Even before the local body elections, the BJP had put aside the reverses of the 2024 general election with spectacular success in Maharashtra, Haryana, and Bihar. This win, which also puts it in pole position in the country's commercial capital for the first time, should energise it ahead of crucial assembly elections in five states in April/May....