MUMBAI, Jan. 6 -- Bolstered by the victory in the 2024 Assembly elections following an 89% win of the contested seats, and over 48% seats won in the municipal council and nagar panchayat elections held last month, an elated Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) next move is to win at least on its own half of the 29 municipal corporations, which are going to the polls next week. Regardless of the tug-of-war between seasoned players and the new entrants over ticket distribution, which has cast its shadow over cities such as Mumbai, Parbhani and Chandrapur, the party is confident that it will better its previous performance nine years ago. Soon after forming the government with the help of then undivided Shiv Sena in 2014, BJP had won 1099 of the 2736 or 40.17% seats in 27 municipal corporations that went to the polls between 2015 and 2018. Now, party leaders are leaving no stone unturned to emerge as the largest in terms of the seats and number of corporations headed by its mayor. Over the next week, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis will hold over 50 rallies between Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and other cities, while the party's state unit chief Ravindra Chavan and election in-charge Chandrashekhar Bawankule will hold between 45-50 rallies in the state. A senior BJP leader, requesting anonymity, said, "Key leaders from the districts are shouldering the responsibility of outreach programmes at the ground level, by tapping into the voters' imagination. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been providing them inputs from voters' surveys conducted over the last four months." This gives the leaders an idea about combating shortfalls in potential areas and corrective measures that need to be taken, the leader added. Equally strategic were BJP's decisions on alliances in certain local bodies. "Way before the elections were announced, the party had decided to align with Shiv Sena in Mumbai rather than NCP," said the leader. "Before that, it took steps to strengthen its weak regions by inducting potential leaders from other parties. Key NCP leaders were poached ahead of the polls in Solapur which helped the party bag major bodies in the first phase of the local body polls," he added. Similar moves helped BJP since the 2014 Assembly polls. The task to induct leaders from other parties was given to Ravindra Chavan soon after he was elected the state unit chief in July last year. "Every leader inducted from other parties brings in at least 10% to 20% votes with him. The party leaders who engineered the poaching spree are more important in the party," said another party leader. However, the party's confidence is tempered by caution, especially with regards to Mumbai, Chandrapur, Parbhani, and two corporations of Pune. The Thackeray cousins - Uddhav Thackeray, head of Shiv Sena (UBT) and Raj Thackeray, head of MNS -- joining forces ahead of the polls have posed a challenge to BJP, said insiders. With the Marathi versus Gujarati plank at play historically in all civic elections in Mumbai, BJP has a Herculean task ahead before it can assume centrestage. "The Opposition had already set the narrative of the BJP-led government working in the interest of Gujarat at the cost of Maharashtra. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah leading the Central government, such a narrative has stirred up the Marathi manoos. With the two Thackerays claiming to be their messiahs, it falls on us to ensure that the Marathi-speaking voters do not desert us," said the BJP leader. Aligning with the Shiv Sena and conceding 90 seats after its chief and DyCM Eknath Shinde drove a hard bargain was aimed at wooing Marathi voters. Sena leaders say results in Assembly, nagar panchayat and municipal council polls in Konkan show Konkani voters have accepted Shinde's faction as the original Sena. The BJP now hopes this will help swing Konkani votes in Mumbai. However, the BJP is on the back foot in Muslim-dominated cities such as Malegaon and Parbhani, and is reeling from infighting in Chandrapur, making it difficult to reach the halfway mark there. Mumbai-based analyst Prakash Akolkar says it will not be a cakewalk in Mumbai, especially with the Thackerays uniting. He says the BJP often leans on Hindutva when under pressure, projecting development while foregrounding anti-Muslim politics, and faces a dilemma in relying on Shinde and Ajit Pawar while limiting their influence. BJP spokesperson Keshav Upadhye, however said that the outcome of phase 1 will be reflected in the phase 2 of the local polls. "We have thrown our full might for the polls, with major leaders holding rallies across the state cashing on the development works done by state and central governments," he said....