Mumbai stepped into the new year with its municipal election finally on the calendar. It has taken four years since the dissolution of the last general body and no representation of the people in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The governance and the affairs of the city did not cease, of course, but continued without people’s participation. The last election was in February 2017, which, one could argue, seems like another era in the city’s arc.

Budgets soar in absence of elected representatives

For context in monetary terms, the BMC’s annual budget that year was Rs 25,141 crore; the budget for the financial year 2022-23, when the term of the elected general body ended, had nearly doubled to about Rs 46,000 crore. Since then, when the BMC has been controlled or managed, to use a kinder word, by the state government, the annual budget has soared.

The last one, in February 2025, was a staggering Rs 74,427 crore. The astronomical rise tells its own story. Not having an elected general body in India’s richest municipal corporation did benefit a few in the political economy of Mumbai.

Declining liveability fuels debate

There can be debates—and a few conspiracy theories too—because the last four to five years have also seen an enormous slide in the liveability of the city. Every parameter turns in worse figures—from critical ones like road work, land use, destruction of natural ecology, air pollution, public hospitals, and garbage collection to relatively less significant issues like urban design and aesthetics, public lighting, ranking on international indices, and so on. Mumbai ranks way down on........

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