Mumbai: For Mumbai’s newest first citizen, Kishori Pednekar, it has been an eventful journey, from nurse to Shiv Sena corporator to the 77th mayor of Mumbai.
In the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, Pednekar was always the face the Shiv Sena presented to the media and on her part, she often succeeded in portraying a favourable image of her party.
More recently, Pednekar played a vital role in the victory of the first Thackeray to contest an election — Aaditya. He stood from the Worli assembly constituency and won by a huge margin.
Her contribution to the electoral win of the Yuva Sena chief was duly recognised by Matoshree, the family seat of the Thackerays. Pednekar was elected unopposed, only the third mayor to be thus elected, on November 22.
She is a nurse by training and worked at the hospital in Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust. Inspired by the views of Sena founding chief Bal Thackeray, Pednekar joined the Sena in 1992 and has remained a loyal Sainik ever since.
Subsequently, she has worked as the party’s subdivisional chief, division organiser and the Sindhudurg district women’s relations organiser. Currently, she works for the Raigad district and Shirdi women’s wing.
Pednekar was first time elected as corporator in 2002. Later she was again contested for the corporation election in 2007 and again managed to retain the post.
After these two terms, she again fought for the corporation election and won. In total she was elected as corporator for four continuous term. In 2012, she was appointed chairman of the Prabhag Samiti, then headed the women and child welfare committee and various others in the BMC.
While being on the position of Chairman, Pednekar approved the proposal of Gender budget to strengthen women empowerment. In the recent report of the Praja foundation, she was declared as the most best corporator of the year.
In the mayoral race, she had to contend with formidable names like standing committee chairman Yashwant Jadhav, Mangesh Satamkar, Ashish Chemburkar, former mayor and current leader of the
House Vishakha Raut and Bala Nar. It was widely speculated Jadhav would win the race but senior Sena leader Anil Parab was sent to the BMC to announce her name.
Raut was at first strongly opposed to Pednekar but was persuaded otherwise by Parab. Mayors Sulochana Joshi and Nandakumar Satam were previously elected unopposed in 1955 and 1998, respectively.
