Mumbai, Pune mayors to be women: Why Uddhav's Sena is unhappy with quota lottery

AMid suspense o'er who'll be city manager of bombay and other john major cities in Maharashtra after the recent municipal polls, the quarter process for the top post in 29 corporations was held on Thursday. As per the rotational system, Mumbai will get an open-category woman mayor, while Thane and Bhiwandi- Nizampur are expected to have mayor 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 learnt. “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 said that Mumbai was not put in the ST category deliberately 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-ChinchwadApart 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 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.