Mahayuti wins Mumbai but Uddhav prevents rout

India's financial capital witnessed a strong wave of support for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Mahayuti alliance in the Maharashtra elections, with the coalition winning 22 of the 36 seats in the city.

- Niraj Pandit, Ateeq Shaikh, Shashank Rao and Sabah Virani

The BJP topped the charts with 15 seats, followed by Shiv Sena (UBT) from the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) with 10. Chief minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena won six seats, while the Congress got three. Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Samajwadi Party secured one seat each, while Sharad Pawar's NCP faction failed to open its account.

The results weren't much different from those in the 2019 polls, when the BJP had won 16 seats and the undivided Shiv Sena clinched 14.

Key wins and losses

The BJP's Kalidas Kolambkar created history by winning his ninth consecutive term from the Wadala constituency. The 71-year-old, who has previously represented the Congress and the Shiv Sena, defeated Shraddha Jadhav of the Shiv Sena (UBT) by 24,970 votes.

In Borivali, the BJP's Sanjay Upadhyay registered a landslide victory with a margin of 100,257 votes, the highest in Mumbai.

The lowest margin in the city was recorded in Mahim, where Mahesh Sawant of the Shiv Sena (UBT) defeated Sada Sarvankar of the Shiv Sena by just 1,316 votes. Amit Thackeray, son of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, finished a distant third. The result marked the first electoral defeat for a member of the Thackeray family, even as the MNS failed to win a single seat in the state.

Amit Thackeray's cousin, Aaditya Thackeray of the Shiv Sena (UBT), also faced a tough challenge in Worli, but managed to bag 8,801 more votes than Shiv Sena's Milind Deora, who was previously with the Congress. Aaditya's other cousin, Varun Sardesai, made an impressive debut in Vandre East for the Shiv Sena (UBT), defeating sitting NCP MLA Zeeshan Siddique by 11,365 votes.