Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, armed with a record budget outlay of ₹74,427 crore—the highest for any local body in the country and larger than the combined annual budgets of five other top municipal corporations—should, in theory, have moved swiftly to its next big decision after the Mahayuti’s emphatic victory.
Naming the mayor by the weekend would have seemed the obvious next step. Instead, Mumbai will have to wait. Despite the BJP-led Mahayuti emerging as the clear winner in Friday’s civic polls, the city is unlikely to get its new mayor any time soon. Logically, naming the mayor ought to have been the easiest part of the process. Politically, however, it has proved anything but. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which has emerged as the single largest party, has publicly stated that the next mayor will be from its ranks. Yet signals from within the ruling alliance suggest that its partner, the Shiv Sena led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, may stake its own claim to the coveted post.
Sources say Shinde’s interest in the mayoralty is driven as much by sentiment as by political calculation. The birth centenary of Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray begins on January 23, and Shinde’s camp believes that allowing a Sena leader to occupy the mayor’s chair would serve as a symbolic tribute to the party supremo. Born on January 23, 1926, Thackeray founded the Shiv Sena in 1966. Beyond paying homage, the Shinde-led Sena is keen to reassure its cadre that it remains committed to its longstanding demand for a Marathi mayor from within its own ranks.
Whether the BJP will accommodate its ally’s request remains uncertain. Party insiders say clarity will emerge only after the reservation status of the mayor’s post is announced. If the post does go to a Shiv Sainik, it would also be viewed as a strategic move to politically unsettle the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, which claims to be the original party founded by Balasaheb Thackeray. The rival factions are currently locked in a legal battle over this claim in the Supreme Court of India. For now, speculation must wait.
The mayoral face cannot be finalised until the reservation category of the post is decided through a lottery system. The mayor’s position is reserved on a rotational basis across the general category, Scheduled Castes, OBCs and women. The lottery, conducted by the state’s Urban Development Department, will ultimately decide who gets the chair—ensuring that Mumbai’s next mayor will be known, but in its own sweet time.
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