Weeks after the Maharashtra urban local body polls concluded, the Mahayuti alliance named BJP’s Ritu Tawde as its Mumbai mayor candidate, putting an end to speculations surrounding the top BMC post. This is for the first time in 25 years that the post would be held by a member of a party other than Shiv Sena.
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Additionally, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Shankar Ghadi has been nominated for the post of deputy mayor. The elections for th Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and 28 other civic bodies were held on January 15 in Maharashtra. The BJP secured 89 seats in the BMC while Shinde’s Sena secured 29.
More about Ritu Tawde, set to be Mumbai mayor
Ritu Tawde is a two-time corporator from Ghatkopar and has also served as the chairperson of the education committee of the BMC. Her name was announced at a meeting of BJP corporators at the BMC headquarters on Friday.
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Tawde will be the second Mumbai mayor from the BJP after Prabhakar Pai who held the post from 1982 to 1983.
“I am feeling very good,” Tawde told media after filing her nomination papers for the post of BMC mayor in Mumbai on Saturday.
The BJP had earlier said that Mumbai mayor will be Marathi-speaking and Tawde was reportedly a frontrunner for the post among several others including Sheetal Gambhir, Rajashree Shirwadkar, Asha Marathe, Priti Satam and Shrikala Pillai.
Tawde was earlier in the Congress and switched to the BJP in 2012.
Along with Mumbai, Pune, Dhule, Nanded-Waghala and Navi Mumbai also got women mayors from the general category as part of a raffle system to ensure rolling representation.
Fight for Mumbai mayor post
Despite the majority, the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance remained worried due to last-minute defections. Shortly after the elections, a row erupted after the Shinde-led Sena moves its corporators in a Bandra hotel.
Post-election day, alliances also kept shifting, bringing more suspense in the run-up to the mayoral lottery. In a turn of events, Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) support to the Shiv Sena in the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) sparked political tensions.
