Mumbai To Have Woman Mayor From General Category: Official

Mumbai:  Mumbai is set to get a woman mayor after the Maharashtra government’s Urban Development Department (UDD) allotted the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) mayoral post to women from the open category through a state-wide reservation lottery.

The decision emerged from a draw of lots conducted for mayoral reservations in 29 municipal corporations across Maharashtra. However, the outcome triggered political controversy, with the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) staging a walkout in protest and demanding that the post be reserved for the Other Backward Classes (OBC). The Congress also alleged that the lottery process was rigged.

A senior UDD official said that reservations for mayoral posts have been allotted category-wise on a rotational basis since 2006. As per the rules, a municipal corporation must have at least three members from a particular category for the mayor’s post to be reserved for that category. If only one post is reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SC) or Scheduled Tribes (ST), it cannot be earmarked for women. Overall, 50 per cent of mayoral posts are reserved for women.

“Based on these rules, a draw of lots was conducted to determine the reservation of mayoral posts in 29 municipal corporations,” the official said, adding that the process was carried out using a transparent circular drum at Mantralaya, with slips drawn one by one.

According to the official, one post (0.67 per cent) has been reserved for the ST category, three posts (3.06 per cent) for the SC category—two of them for women—and eight posts (7.83 per cent) for the OBC category, of which four are reserved for women. The remaining 17 posts are in the general category, with nine reserved for women. “As a result, 15 out of the 29 municipal corporations in the state will have women mayors,” the official said.

The first draw was for the ST category, for which nine municipal corporations were eligible, including Kalyan–Dombivli, Thane, Nagpur, Nashik and Pimpri–Chinchwad. The slip drawn was of Kalyan–Dombivli Municipal Corporation, which will have the state’s only mayor from the ST category.

The second draw, for three SC-reserved posts, resulted in Jalna, Latur and Thane being selected. Thane is the home turf of Deputy Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde.

The third draw was for the OBC category. Jalna was excluded as its mayor’s post had already been reserved for a woman from the SC category, while Ichalkaranji and Panvel were automatically reserved for OBCs. Of the remaining corporations, six—Akola, Ahilyanagar, Ulhasnagar, Kolhapur, Chandrapur and Jalgaon—were selected through a draw.

Shiv Sena (UBT) objected to Mumbai’s exclusion from the OBC draw. Former BMC mayor and party leader Kishori Pednekar pointed out that Mumbai’s mayoral post had been allotted to the open category in 2017 and 2019 and argued that, under the rotational system, it should have figured in the OBC draw this time. She accused the BJP-led Mahayuti government of deliberately denying the OBC community its due representation.

Ms Pednekar also alleged that the lottery was manipulated. “Everything is managed,” she claimed.

Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar alleged that the lottery was not conducted in a transparent way. He also alleged that the reservations were predetermined in accordance with the categories of senior BJP councillors in respective civic bodies.

Responding to the allegations, Minister of State for Urban Development Madhuri Misal, who supervised the lottery, said the objections raised by the Opposition had been noted but asserted that the draw was conducted strictly as per rules and with full transparency. “The objections raised by Shiv Sena (UBT) were not in accordance with the rules. The reservation process has been completed as per the law. There is no substance in the allegations,” Ms Misal said.