An AI tool being developed with IIT-B to identify ‘illegal Bangladeshis’, says Fadnavis

Terming the issue of “illegal Bangladeshis” as a major issue against which the Maharashtra Government has taken up a drive, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Tuesday (January 13, 2026) that an AI tool is being developed along with IIT-Bombay to identify “illegal Bangladeshis”.

“Right now, work on the tool is going on. It currently has a success rate of up to 60%,” he said during a conversation with select journalists at the Chief Minister’s official residence ‘Varsha’. He added that the State government has taken up a major drive to remove “illegal Bangladeshis” from Mumbai, and that the drive will continue after the elections as well.

While speaking about the upcoming Municipal Corporation elections in Maharashtra, he predicted that the BJP-led Mahayuti will register a victory at 26-27 of the 29 Municipal Corporations going to polls on January 15, 2026.

When asked about the impact of these elections on the 2029 polls, he said the BJP has already proven itself to be the Number 1 party, but these elections will make BJP a major pole in Maharashtra in 2029. “Thereafter, politics will revolve around BJP,” he said.

“The tone for this election has already been set. And the tone is for development, for change. It is development which has become the poll plank. People are seeing what we can deliver,” he said, giving a list of infrastructure projects going on in the State. While speaking about the alliance between Raj Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray, he said that Raj Thackeray will be the biggest loser in the alliance. “That is because he will not get anything out of being with Uddhav Thackeray. Raj Thackeray will end up benefitting Uddhav Thackeray, but Uddhav will not benefit Raj,” he said.

Asked if the Thackeray cousins were fighting a battle for survival, he said, “Nobody can finish off a party. People give you more sometimes, less sometimes. But if you do not try to bounce back, you won’t succeed. They did not even put their prestige at stake.”

Terming the alliance between the NCP and opposition party NCP SP a local phenomenon, he said it will likely not be taken ahead thereafter. “But 2019 has taught me to not say anything firmly about this. As of now, it looks like a local phenomenon to me,” he said, referring to the 2019 government formation by the BJP-NCP, where the NCP walked out of the alliance soon thereafter.

When quizzed about the consolidation of the Marathi vote bank due to the reunification of Thackeray cousins, he said that Marathi vote bank was not a unified share anyway. “We have the Marathi voters. MNS does not make any difference. In 2014 and in 2024, we fought against Uddhav Thackeray. And yet, we got more votes. In 2014, 2019 and 2014, we got over 15 – 16 seats (in Mumbai in State legislature). We can’t get those many seats without the Marathi vote bank. Our concern is the floating Marathi voters. We will have to cap that,” he said.

Since the mayoral issue has taken centre stage for the BMC elections in Mumbai, he spoke about the formula as well as the mayoral criteria. While predicting that the Mahayuti will have a smooth win in Mumbai, he said that it won’t be necessary that the biggest party will get the mayoral position. “The mayor will belong to Mahayuti, will be a Hindu and will be a Marathi. The issue of a Muslim mayor came up when Kripashankar Singh spoke about a Hindi mayor in Mira Bhayander. AIMIM said the next day that a ‘burqewali’ (a burqa clad woman) will become Mumbai’s mayor. Shiv Sena UBT, which had attacked the BJP over a Hindi mayor, refused to utter a single word against AIMIM. That is when we criticised them saying that a Khan will become Mumbai’s mayor if they come to power,” he said.

Mr. Fadnavis was quizzed about the poll combinations in Ambarnath and in Akot. In Akot, the BJP had joined hands with AIMIM, among others, to come to power in the local body. In Ambarnath, it fought against its ally Shiv Sena to try to keep it out of power. Ultimately, Shiv Sena trumped BJP with the help of NCP and wrestled power back from the BJP.

“In Akot, it is technical. We had entered into an alliance with NCP. The NCP, in a post-poll alliance, joined hands with others including AIMIM. When we realised it, we served a show cause notice to our local leader and withdrew from there. In Ambarnath, the message which was going out was that the BJP was fighting against its own ally Shiv Sena. So when the Sena decided to form the local body there, I told Ravindra Chavan to let them go ahead. I also spoke with Eknath Shinde,” he said.

When asked about the weird political combinations in the State for these local body elections, where the Mahayuti components were seen fighting against each other, leading acerbic personal attacks against each other, he said it was decided that there will be no personal attacks. Terming Cabinet Minister Ganesh Naik’s personal attacks against Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde as ‘wrong’, he said the decision was made by all the parties, but Ajit Pawar broke the rule in Pune.