Pune Mayor & Deputy Mayor Elected Unopposed; BJP's Manjusha Nagpure, RPI's Parshuram Wadekar Take Charge

Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Manjusha Nagpure and Republican Party of India's (RPI) Parshuram Wadekar were elected unopposed as the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Monday.

In the PMC elections held on January 15, the BJP emerged as the single-largest party, winning 119 of the 165 seats, while the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) stood second with 27 seats and the Congress third with 15.

Looking at the numbers, it was expected that the elections for the posts of mayor and deputy mayor would be unopposed, as the BJP had single-handedly crossed the magic figure. However, it was not to be, as the Congress and the NCP fielded their candidates.

The Congress party fielded Ashwini Landge for the post of mayor and Sahil Kedari for deputy mayor, while the NCP fielded Sheetal Sawant for the post of mayor and Datta Bahirat for the post of deputy mayor. However, they withdrew their nominations on Monday ahead of the elections, making the polls for mayor and deputy mayor unopposed.

Nagpure, a three-time corporator, won the elections unopposed from Ward No. 35B (Suncity–Manikbaug). A 46-year-old postgraduate in Business Management, she belongs to a family with a strong Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) background.

Meanwhile, Wadekar, a Republican Party of India (RPI) corporator, won from Ward No. 8A (Aundh–Bopodi) by defeating NCP candidate Vinod Ranpise by a margin of 8,747 votes.

As per the draw, the post of mayor was reserved for a woman corporator elected from the general category.