The Congress will fight the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections on its own, the party’s Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala was quoted as saying by The Hindu on Saturday.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is the governing civic body for Mumbai.

On Monday, the State Election Commission announced that the elections for 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra, including the BMC, will be held in a single phase on January 15. The results will be declared on January 16.

“We will fight against the BJP, we will fight against the Shiv Sena Uddhav group,” Chennithala was quoted as saying on Saturday. “We appeal to all the secular, democratic Mumbaikars to support us.”

The Congress is part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, which also includes the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), on the state level.

The alliance had fought the Maharashtra Assembly elections held in November 2024 together. It was defeated by the Mahayuti coalition, which comprises the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Shiv Sena group led by Eknath Shinde and the Nationalist Congress Party faction of Ajit Pawar.

Chennithala’s announcement came two days after Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said that the party would contest the civic polls in Mumbai on its own if the Uddhav Sena joins hands with Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.

“If we go with MNS, who will vote for us?” Sawant was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. “Will the North Indians, the Muslims, vote for us? The ideology of MNS and Congress are different, we cannot have any alliance with them.”

In August, Uddhav Sena MP Sanjay Raut said that his party and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena will contest the municipal elections in the state, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls, in alliance.

In addition to Mumbai, talks were underway to contest the municipal polls together in Thane, Nashik, Kalyan Dombivali and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Raut had said, adding that “no one can break the unity of the Thackerays”.

On Saturday, Chennithala said that the Congress decided to go solo in the BMC elections as the party’s “local cadres want it”, reported The Hindu.

“We have given them the permission to do so,” he was quoted as saying. “We are preparing our manifesto. We will bring it to the people of Mumbai.”

In 2005, Raj Thackeray quit the undivided Shiv Sena and formed the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena a year later.

The Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena were political rivals for the past two decades.

However, on July 5, Uddhav Thackeray held a rally with his cousin Raj Thackeray, during which he said that they had “come together to stay together”.

“We have united to protect Marathi,” Uddhav Thackeray had told supporters of his Shiv Sena faction and those of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena at a joint rally in Mumbai. “I want to tell you all that us coming together is just a trailer. This is just the beginning.”