The mayor's post for the Brihanmumnai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will be reserved for a general category candidate in the open section for the next two-and-a-half years. This was decided after a draw opened for reservation for the mayoral posts in 27 municipal corporations across the State at Mantralaya on Wednesday.
Election for the posts will be held on November 22.
Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli, Sangli, Ulhasnagar and Nashik are among the corporations that will have a mayor from the open section.
The change of Mayor was scheduled before the Assembly polls in Maharashtra but had to be postponed on account of the model code of conduct being in force.
Among the other municipal corporations, Vasai-Virar is reserved for the scheduled tribe (general), Mira-Bhayander for scheduled caste (general), Ahmednagar and Parbhani for SC (women), Latur, Dhule and Amravati for backward class of citizens (general), Nanded-Waghala, Solapur, Kolhapur and Malegaon for backward class of citizen (women), and Navi Mumbai, Jalgaon, Bhiwandi, Akola, Panvel, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Aurangabad and Chandrapur for open (women).
With the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress party (NCP) and Congress attempting to stitch an alliance in Maharashtra, the election of mayors is likely to throw up surprises in many places.
In the BMC, the Sena has 94 corporators while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has 81. The Congress-NCP together have 36 corporators.
The BJP has not yet decided if it will be fielding anyone for the mayor’s post. If it does, and if talks between Congress-NCP and Sena fall through at State level, the Congress-NCP may decide to vote for the BJP candidate, the only scenario in which the city will have a BJP mayor.
If the two parties choose to abstain, or vote in favour of the Sena, the city will get a Sena mayor again. Several names are in the fray from the Shiv Sena, including standing committee chairman Yashwant Jadhav and former mayor Vishakha Raut.
