Ahmedabad: Union Minister Ramdas Athawale on Monday said the BJP should get the mayor’s post in Mumbai since it emerged as the largest party in the civic polls in the metropolis.
In an alliance of multiple parties, there is a general understanding that the mayor’s post is usually given to the party that wins the maximum number of seats, the president of the Republican Party of India (A) said.
While the BJP has won 89 seats (in the 227-member Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation), 29 seats were bagged by Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, the Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment said at a press conference here.
With the BJP unwilling to compromise on the “administrative control of the BMC”, the issue is expected to be discussed when Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis returns from Davos on January 24 after attending the World Economic Forum.
Meanwhile, the newly elected corporators from Shinde-led Sena were shifted to a hotel soon after the BMC election results, and have been kept there for two days now. While the Shinde Sena has claimed that its 29 newly elected corporators were called to the hotel for an “orientation session”, the Opposition has alleged “resort politics”.
In the run-up to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections, the familiar debate over Marathi versus non-Marathi identity returned to the campaign trail. Appeals to Marathi pride featured prominently in speeches by the Shiv Sena factions and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, even as other parties sought to strike a balance in a city shaped by many languages. The results, however, underline that Mumbai’s migrant population continues to influence civic politics. Of the 227 corporators elected, 78 are of non-Marathi origin, accounting for just over one-third of the House and marginally higher than the previous term, when 76 corporators were non-Marathi.
