Monsoon may disrupt BMC staffing for civic polls in Mumbai

The upcoming civic polls are not just a challenge for political parties but also for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). If elections are held in October, the BMC will need to assign staff for poll duty during the monsoon, which poses logistical difficulties.

On May 6, the Supreme Court ordered the state government to conduct the civic elections within four months, effectively placing the timeline in October. However, civic officials say they would need to engage staff from September itself to prepare for the polls, which overlaps with the monsoon season — a period when most BMC personnel are occupied with emergency and rain-related work.

“In the monsoon, a majority of our staff is involved in rain-related operations. It will be a challenge to manage manpower if elections are held in October,” a civic official said. In the 2017 BMC elections, around 5000 civic employees were deployed on election duty. This number rose to approximately 9000 during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The BMC has a total of 99,000 permanent employees.

A senior official from the civic election department said, “We have not yet received any communication from the State Election Commission to deploy staff. But if we`re required to assign staff during the monsoon, we will ensure emergency department personnel are excluded from poll duty.” Meanwhile, sources from the state election department indicated that elections may be pushed beyond October, as the process of ward formation alone will take around 70 days. Updating the electoral rolls is expected to take another 40 days.

The term of BMC corporators ended on March 7, 2022. Since then, the civic body has been managed by a state-appointed administrator. In the last BMC election, in 2017, the undivided Shiv Sena won 84 seats while the BJP bagged 82. Congress secured 31 seats, and Shiv Sena managed to retain control of the corporation. Later, six of the seven Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) corporators joined Shiv Sena. After the party split, around 26 former corporators who had won in 2017 shifted allegiance to Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction of the Shiv Sena.