Mumbai civic polls: Mahayuti releases manifesto, promises 50% bus concession for women alongside new benefits

With the Maharashtra municipal corporations poll entering the final phase, Mahayuti alliance (BJP, Shiv Sena, and RPI) on Sunday (January 11, 2026) unveiled the manifesto for Mumbai civic body elections, promises 50% bus fare concessions for women, an interest-free loan up to ₹5 lakhs for women under the Ladki Bahin scheme.

The Mahayuti also targets GenZ through its manifesto, providing internship programmes, Mumbai Digital Sakhi to train women in AI and coding courses and use AI technology to deport Bangladeshis. 

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis emphasised AI technology and integrated it into several schemes and projects to achieve transparency.

Citing the integration of AI in BEST services, Mr. Fadanvis said, “We are reducing the human intervention to increase the transparency, using AI integration. The AI integration will also be done in developing a command and control system, especially used during the monsoon in Mumbai.” 

“We are developing an AI tool to identify the Bangladeshi. We have been working on this for the past three months and achieved 60% relaibailty, soon we will be able to identify and deport the Bangladeshi’s from Mumbai,” Mr. Fadnavis added. 

Housing agenda

All parties have focused on the issues of housing and redevelopment, targeting Marathi people and promise to keep them in Mumbai only by providing affordable housing. 

Criticising Shiv Sena (UBT) and its tenure of the past 25 years in BMC, Shiv Sena chief and deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde announced plans for promoting redevelopment, cluster development of chawls, Occupancy Certificates (OC) for buildings, and ‘pagdi-free Mumbai’.

“We will pave the way for development by distributing PCs to 20,000 buildings that have been pending. Similar to Ghatkopar’s Ramabai housing project, where 17,000 houses are built, the work for 17 other projects will start in the first phase,” Mr. Shinde added. 

The Chief Minister pointed out that to bring transparency in the appointment of developers for housing projects, where MHADA will have all the rights to make decisions, monitor the developers and create a “viable” ecosystem for businesses in Dharavi.

Mr. Shinde said, “In the next year, Mumbai’s roads will be pothole-free.”

Transportation in Mumbai

BJP aims to develop the water transportation system for at least 200 nautical miles from the existing 85 nautical miles in the MMR region. “Currently, RoRo and passenger water boats have been a hit; we plan to develop 21 jetties, a sustainable water taxi that can connect the Gateway of India to Navi Mumbai airport and other routes in the MMR region,” Mr. Fadnavis added. 

On the railway front, Mahayuti offers to add three more coaches to existing trains, and for the metro plans to complete the 427 KM of metro network in the MMR region.

Mr. Shinde compared the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s promises in the manifesto and highlighted that its counterpart has nowhere mentioned the birth centenary of Bal Thackeray, saying, “Their manifesto is Ghotalanama (scam manifesto), having no mention of Bal Thackeray, Hindutva, and Marathi Manoos.”