Women Set to Lead Mumbai and Pune: Why the Sena is Unhappy with the Quota Lottery

Amid the suspense over who will be the mayor of Mumbai and other major cities in Maharashtra after the recent municipal polls, the draw process for the top post in 29 corporations was held on Thursday. According to the rotational system, Mumbai will get an open-category woman mayor, while Thane and Bhiwandi-Nizampur are expected to have mayors from the SC category.

Shiv Sena (UBT) raised objections to the process and alleged that the reservation exercise was rigged to benefit the ruling alliance, HT has learned. “The government changed the rules of reservation for the ST category. The requirement of a minimum number of members from the category was altered at the last minute,” said former mayor Kishori Pednekar of Sena (UBT).

She added that Mumbai was not deliberately put in the ST category, as only the Sena-UBT has two councillors from the category in the city. According to the draw, mayoral posts in Ichalkaranji, Ahilyanagar, Kolhapur, Chandrapur, Jalgaon, Akola, Panvel, and Ulhasnagar have been reserved for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category.

Of these, Chandrapur, Ichalkaranji, Akola, and Jalgaon will have women mayors from the OBC category. In total, 17 municipal corporations will have mayors from the open category, of which nine posts are reserved for women. Major civic bodies falling under the open category include Mumbai, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad (PCMC), and Nagpur.

Woman mayors for Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad

Apart from Mumbai, PCMC (Pimpri Chinchwad), Pune, Bhiwandi, and Dhule will have women mayors from the open category. Navi Mumbai, Malegaon, Nanded, and Mira Bhayandar will also have women mayors from the open category.

Responding to the allegations of fraud, Madhuri Misal, minister of state for the Urban Development Department, who chaired the draw process, said the government had taken note of the objections. However, she dismissed Sena (UBT)'s claims, stating that they lacked substance. The party wanted the reservation convenient to them, Misal said, adding that the process as per the rules was followed.

The law stipulates that the mayor’s post must be reserved by rotation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and Women candidates, as HT reported earlier. It is only after this lottery is conducted that the statutory procedure for the mayoral election can begin. Following the reservation announcement, a special meeting of the BMC house is convened to notify members of the mayoral election schedule. Typically, a seven-day window is provided after the notification, placing the mayoral election this time around January 28 or 29.