Richa PintoMumbai: The election of 79 winners in this year’s BMC elections – or 34% in the civic House of 227 — has been challenged in court by their rivals. Among the challengers are former BMC corporators, the daughter of a sitting Shiv Sena MP and a former BJP party leader in the civic body. While one of the poll petitions has already been rejected by a court, the other 78 remain.The BMC elections were held in Jan 2026, with the BJP-Shiv Sena combine getting elected to office.The challenges to the verdicts are on different grounds, including alleged undisclosed FIRs, lack of validity of caste certificates and discrepancies in address proofs.Among the former BMC corporators to have questioned the verdicts are BJP’s Vinod Mishra, who was formerly party group leader in the BMC, Congress’ Sheetal Mhatre, who had won the civic polls in 2012, and Shiv Sena’s Rajul Patel, Sanjay Nana Ambole and Raju Pednekar. Also from the Sena are Deepti Waikar Potnis, daughter of Sena’s Mumbai North West MP Ravindra Waikar, and Priya Sarvankar Gurav, daughter of former Shinde Sena MLA Sada Sarvankar, who contested against Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Vishakha Raut and lost.Information about the legal challenges was provided by the BMC’s legal department to RTI activist Anil Galgali under the Right to Information Act. Galgali, in an application on May 12, had sought detailed information regarding election petitions filed against those elected as corporators in the Jan 2026 municipal elections.“The election of as many as 79 corporators has been challenged. One petition has been dismissed by the lower court, while hearings in the remaining cases are ongoing,” said Galgali, based on the information he received.The election petition dismissed by the court had been filed by Mohammad Anwar Abdullah Shaikh from ward 119 ‘S’ against Shiv Sena corporator Rajesh Sonawale and other candidates.Jyoti Anil Upadhyay, BJP candidate who contested from ward 90 and lost by just seven votes to Congress candidate Tulip Miranda – the narrowest margin in this year’s polls – has also challenged the result. Tulip Miranda is currently a member of the civic standing committee. Her husband Brian Miranda had won the seat in 2012, and Tulip had won from the ward for the first time in 2017, when the seat was reserved for a woman candidate.Galgali said that the issue of validity of caste certificates has in the past caused problems for sitting corporators, with some of them being disqualified barely a few months after being elected. “The court hearings will be carefully watched,” he said.
