Mumbai and 14 Other Cities to Get Women Mayors Amid Allegations of Rigging

Mumbai and 14 other cities, including Navi Mumbai, Mira-Bhayandar, and Nagpur, will have women mayors drawn from various categories. This follows a draw conducted by the state urban development department for reservation to the mayoral post in the 29 municipal corporations that went to the polls last week.

The exercise, though, was marred by allegations of rigging by the opposition, which claimed the exercise was tailored to benefit the ruling parties. The draw was held in the state secretariat, Mantralaya, at a meeting chaired by minister of state for urban development, Madhuri Misal, on Thursday. Reservations in various categories are based on the proportion of scheduled castes (SC), scheduled tribes (ST), and other backward classes (OBCs) in the 29 municipal corporations, according to the 2011 census. Also, the law mandates 50% reservation for women across all quotas.

The SC population is 3.06%, delivering three mayoral posts, while the ST category, comprising 0.67% of the population, received one mayoral seat. Since OBCs account for 27% of the population in the 29 corporations, 17 seats have been allotted to this demographic category. The draw was conducted considering 2006 as the base year, when the rules for the mayoral reservation were reframed. Reserved categories were not repeated within a corporation vis-à-vis past elections.

In the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Mira-Bhayandar, Vasai-Virar, and Bhiwandi-Nizampur will have mayors from the general category, with the first three reserved for women. The Kalyan-Dombivali mayoral post is reserved for an ST candidate, while Thane and Panvel will have mayors from the SC and OBC categories, respectively.

While the draw was underway, the Shiv Sena (UBT) alleged that the reservation exercise had been rigged to benefit the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena alliance. “The government changed the rules for reservation for the ST category by raising the minimum number of seats from two to three in the corporations. This is an injustice to SCs and STs as Mumbai was not considered for these, as well as OBC reservation,” alleged former mayor and Sena (UBT) leader Kishori Pednekar, who was representing her party at the meeting.

Misal, however, struck down the objections, saying, “The objections have no substance and a noise is being made as the reservation is not convenient to them. The reservation has been held as per the rules framed in 2006. It was done in front of the media and representatives of the political parties, and the entire exercise has been live-streamed.”

Eyebrows were also raised on reservations for the OBC category being allotted by arranging 23 corporations in alphabetical order in Marathi. The first six corporations – Akola, Ahilyanagar, Ulhasnagar, Kolhapur, Chandrapur, and Jalgaon – were given OBC reservations. Two others – Ichalkaranji and Panvel – were reserved without a draw as they have not had an OBC reservation since 2006. The opposition has raised objections, saying these six corporations should have been picked by a draw. They also claimed the exercise had been altered to exclude some civic bodies like Mumbai. An officer with the UDD concurs, “There was no provision in the 2006 rules to choose reservations by placing the m alphabetically,” he said.