The BJP and Shiv Sena must find a way to getting the city back on track

There is an apocryphal story of an army general who was asked about an improbable victory in battle. He thought for a while and responded, “I did not win because I was strong; I won because my enemy was weak.”

So it is with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, as the results of elections to 10 municipalities, 25 zilla parishads and 283 panchayat samitis come in. The Bharatiya Janata Party, to which he belongs, was faced with a remarkably weak opposition— a Congress party buffeted by infighting, a Nationalist Congress Party that’s lost its punch, a narrow-agenda-driven Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). In fact, the BJP’s strongest opposition was the Shiv Sena, its alliance partner in the State and Central governments, and with which it had an acrimonious split for the civic elections.

The biggest battle was for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), where both parties were locked in a bitter exchange of words. In the end, the Sena won 84 of the 227 seats. The BJP bagged 82.

The BMC is important not only because of the sheer size of its budget — last year, it crossed the ₹37,000 crore mark, a figure greater than the GDP of 10 States and four Union Territories — but also because of the clout it ensures in the country’s financial capital. Nonetheless, the BMC can be described in three words — an absolute mess.

Crumbling infrastructure

The two reasons why the BMC has this reputation is due to the poor quality of roads in the city and the complete apathy of the town planning department. In the first case, the BMC has a genuine excuse — not all roads in Mumbai are built or maintained by it. There is also the Public Works Department and the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Limited, which build flyovers and the inner-city highways which eventually connect to the national highways. These are maintained by a Central agency, the National Highways Authority of India. The lack of coordination among these agencies is the real problem.

Added to this are haphazard real estate development and rampant rent-seeking, leading to a prohibitive cost of living and a changing social fabric which reflects in ghettos along business, religious and caste lines. Burdened by such pressures, Mumbai has spread itself so thin that a Mumbai resident’s trust in the municipal corporation often stands completely eroded. Regaining this trust will be a gargantuan effort.

The advantage that the Sena and the BJP have is that they run both the civic and the State governments. Yet, both parties have turned a blind eye towards rampant corruption, among their members as well as the bureaucracy, and have remained silent while civic institutions continue to crumble around them.

For instance, public transport in Mumbai needs a complete overhaul. The shrill promises at election rallies have not changed much. The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking, which runs the city’s bus services and electricity supply in some parts, has not modernised its fleet in decades. Water supply continues to be diverted from lower and middle-income group localities to skyscrapers. Instead of investing in public transport, thus reducing the density of private vehicles, almost every new transport policy at the city and State levels encourages private ownership. Mumbai’s parking charges have remained constant for years, thus incentivising the use of cars rather than public transport.

Not surprisingly, Delhi, and not Mumbai, is the most competitive city in India. In a recent World Competitive Cities report, the World Bank singled out Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu for its stellar growth in job creation, attracting world-class companies, and in turn progress and prosperity. Not long back, Mumbai, which continues to attract skilled and unskilled migrants in huge numbers every year, would have been the beacon of growth for the country.

Mandate for change

If there is one message the Shiv Sena and the BJP need to take away from this week’s election results, it is this: We have been given a mandate for change, and that change should happen quickly to transform the city into a global destination for business and talent.

It is pretty clear what the first point of dispute is going to be for the Shiv Sena and BJP — a fierce tussle over the mayor’s post. Ever since the commissioner was made the de facto CEO of the city some years ago, the mayor’s post and the post of chairperson of the all-powerful standing committee have been bitterly contested. This year is not going to be any different.