MUMBAI, Jan. 21 -- The hard-fought civic elections, a historic win for the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in Mumbai, turned out to be a far closer contest than they appeared to be. Beyond the slim nine-seat gap between the ruling parties and the combined opposition, the vote share tells a more nuanced story. The vote share - the percentage of votes polled by a party - reveals a party's true standing with voters, and the percentage for both the BJP and Shiv Sena has declined, compared to the last election in Mumbai, the 2024 assembly polls A comparison shows that while the BJP's vote share has declined perceptibly from assembly polls to civic elections (29.34% vs 28.03%), the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has suffered a significant dent (18.36% vs 12.79% vs). As many as 56.74 lakh voters cast their ballot in the assembly polls, the number dropping to 54.76 lakh in the BMC polls held on January 15. The vote share of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) was nearly the same in both elections - 22.94% in the BMC election, compared to 22.63% in the assembly polls in Mumbai. The Sena (UBT) polled 12.56 lakh votes in the civic elections, down from 12.84 lakh votes in the assembly polls. However, the Sena (UBT)'s alliance partner, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) led by Raj Thackeray, saw a dip in its vote share, to 6.01% in the BMC elections from 6.18% in the assembly polls. The Congress, which contested the BMC polls without the Sena (UBT) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), experienced a marginal decline in its comparative vote share between the two elections. The BJP polled 15.35 lakh votes in the civic polls, compared to 16.64 lakh in the assembly elections. The party's strike rate, however, was highest - 66% - and it won as many as six seats by polling more than 20,000 votes, when none other party crossed the 20,000-vote mark. The BJP won 89 seats of the 137 it contested in the BMC elections. In contrast, the Shiv Sena polled 7.01 lakh votes, significantly less than the 10.42 lakh it polled in the assembly elections. It's strike rate in the civic poll was less than half that of its alliance partner, at 32.2%, winning 29 seats of the 90 it contested. An analysis of the data also shows that voters in the Marathi-dominated belt of Parel, Mahim, Sewri, Laglbaug and Bhandup rallied behind the Thackeray cousins. This resulted in a Sena (UBT) victory in these areas, with a comfortable margin. Muslim voters did not support the Sena (UBT) as they had in the assembly and Lok Sabha elections in 2024, and parties like the AIMIM secured more seats this time around. "Our alliance with the Shiv Sena failed to deliver the Marathi vote we had expected. This is in part due to the consolidation of Marathi voters in favour of the Thackerays. We lost a handful of seats by a margin of less than 100 votes. We also believe the BJP would have crossed the 100-seat mark even if we had not joined forces with the Sena. Conceding more seats (90) to the Sena was a mistake," said a BJP leader. State Congress general secretary Sachin Sawant said, "One can't compare the vote share of the civic polls with that of the assembly elections as civic polls are fought at a micro level, and there are too many players in the fray. It is true that our vote share has dropped and we are introspecting on it. It is also true that if the MVA had been in its original form (without MNS), we would be in power in the BMC." Psephologist and political analyst Arun Giri said the BMC election was a closely fought battle. "Sena (UBT) has done much better after aligning with the Raj Thackeray-led MNS in the BMC elections," he said. Would the BJP have fared better without the Sena? "Not at all. A certain class of voters who support the Sena has voted for the BJP. Without the Sena, the BJP would have won fewer seats," said Giri....