Mumbai: Following a decisive victory by the BJP-led Mahayuti in the BMC elections, ending the 25-year dominance of the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray on the country’s richest civic body, all eyes are on who will be the next Mayor of Mumbai. Mumbai is expected to have a new mayor by the end of the month after the lottery determining the reservation is held. “The lottery will be held next week, and notification for the same will be issued soon,” said K H Govindraj, Principal Secretary of the state urban development department (UDD II).
Reservation categories
The BJP will install its first mayor for Mumbai, and the lottery will determine for which category the mayor’s post will be reserved, such as general, women or backward classes. Once the category is announced, interested candidates will file their nominations, and the mayoral election will be held in a special meeting by the newly elected corporators in the BMC House, which is expected to be 10 days after the reservation process is completed. Based on this timeline, Mumbai is likely to have a new mayor by the end of January.
The results for all 29 municipal corporations declared on Friday late at night cleared the path for the next step of appointing mayors. “The reservation lottery for the posts of mayor in all 29 municipal corporations, including the BMC, will be held on the same day. The process is conducted by the UDD. Under the existing rules, 50 per cent of mayoral posts are reserved for women, including those from the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) categories. Reservation of mayoral posts will be decided based on the proportion of SC, ST, and OBC populations in the state, using data from the 2011 Census,” officials explained.
Official Notifications
Although the results for all 227 wards of BMC were declared late on Friday, the official gazette will be published by the BMC Commissioner, Bhushan Gagrani, in the next couple of days, following which the notification on the reservation lottery for mayoral election will be issued. “The reservation will be held by the state, and the UDD will decide the date,” Gagrani said.
In a thumping success in the BMC elections, the BJP became the single largest party with 89 seats, and its alliance partner Shiv Sena (Shinde) won 29. Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena bagged 65 seats, and Congress won 24.
However, among both the factions of the Shiv Sena, the Uddhav Thackeray group emerged as a bigger winner than the Eknath Shinde-led Sena. This changed the dynamics among the Sena factions, and Shinde called a meeting of all elected corporators in a five-star hotel in Bandra. It is said that the corporators will stay at the hotel till the mayor’s choice is finalised.
BJP celebrations
The Mumbai BJP karyakarts were seen celebrating their victory on Friday with placards in Marathi indicating ‘Mumbai’s will be a Marathi Hindu mayor’. Speaking with the FPJ before the polling, Mumbai BJP President Ameet Satam had clarified that it does not matter whether the mayor is from the BJP or Shinde Sena. “Mumbai’s next mayor will be from Mahayuti, a Mumbaikar, a Hindu,” he said.
To get details on exclusive and budget-friendly property deals in Mumbai & surrounding regions, do visit: https://budgetproperties.in/
