[By Sapna Desai Mumbai Samachar Desk]
Mumbai : In the Mumbai Municipal Corporation 2026 elections, it has been seen that political parties have once again done injustice to Gujaratis. The complete list of most of the parties was not released till late night on Tuesday, but according to the information available to “Mumbai Samachar”, it has been revealed from the list of candidates received late in the evening that except BJP, other political parties have not taken Gujaratis into account. Gujaratis are traditionally called the vote bank of BJP, yet BJP has once again ignored more than 35 lakh Gujaratis of Mumbai. BJP has given candidature to just 22 Gujarati-Marwaris for the elections.
According to the list released on Tuesday, the last day of filing nominations for the 2026 Mumbai Municipal Corporation elections, the BJP had given tickets to only 22 Gujarati-Marwari candidates. While the Congress had given tickets to six Gujarati-Marwari candidates. While Uddhav’s UBT had given tickets to one and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party to one, the Shinde Sena seems to have ignored the Gujaratis. On the other hand, Raj Thackeray’s MNS, which already had a grudge against Gujaratis, surprised everyone by giving a candidacy to only one Gujarati woman from Wadala.
In the 2017 Mumbai Municipal Corporation elections, more than 40 Gujarati candidates from all major political parties were in the fray, while this year the figure from all parties combined did not go beyond 30. However, during the day, a large number of Gujarati candidates filed their nominations as independents, mainly Nehal Shah, a former corporator of Ward No. 177 of BJP’s Wadala, who did not get a ticket from the party, filed a form to contest the elections independently.
According to the list released by BJP late on Tuesday evening, twenty-two Gujarati-Marwaris were given candidature, including Jitendra Patel from ward number 10, Jignya Shah from ward number 15, Himanshu Parekh from ward number 22, Nitin Chauhan from ward number 29, Dhaval Vora from ward number 30, Marwari candidate Siddharth Sharma from ward number 36, Harsh Patel from ward number 55, Sandeep Patel from ward number 58, Aarti Pandya from ward number 66, Sunita Mehta from ward number 71, Kesarben Patel from ward number 81, Hetal Gala from ward number 97, Hetal Gala-Marvekar in ward number 103 Mulund, Neel Somaiya from ward number 107, Dharmesh Giri from ward number 130, Marwari candidate Kashish Phulwaria from ward number 151, from ward number 177 Kalpesha Kothari, former corporator Minal Patel from ward number 217 Malabar Hill has been given ticket to Gaurang Zaveri. From ward number 221 Akash Purohit and Rita Makwana from ward number 221, Marwari candidate Rohan Rathod from ward number 66, who is a close relative of Mumbai BJP president Amit Satam are among the candidates.
BJP had given tickets to 18 Gujarati Marwaris, but many former Gujarati corporators did not get tickets. As the seats of Jagdish Ojha, Harish Chheda, Praveen Shah, Atul Shah were reserved, the party did not give them candidature from other places. Former corporator Nehal Shah has not got ticket this time. Tickets of former Gujarati corporator Sejal Desai from ward number 35 and former corporator Sunita Mehta of ward number 70 have been cancelled. Similarly in Ghatkopar, former BJP corporators Bindu Trivedi, Bina Doshi, Sandhya Doshi, Minal Patel, Jyotsna Mehta of ward number 130 have also not been given tickets.
On Monday, the Congress gave ‘AB’ forms to 87 candidates, of which only five were Gujarati Marwaris, including Pradeep Kothari from Ward 22, Parag Shah from Ward 35, Chetan Bhatt from Ward 55, Sudarshan Soni from Ward 43, Sonal Parmar from Ward 220 and Prithviraj Jain from Ward 221. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) fielded Hemali Bhansali from ward number 177 and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Party fielded only Gujarati Bharat Danani from ward number 107 of Mulund.
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