Mumbai is all set to have a woman mayor, as per the reservation lottery drawn by the Urban Development Department on Thursday morning, January 22.
According to UDD's laws for urban local bodies, each city's mayoral seat is reserved on a rotation for elected candidates from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, open category, and women.
The reservation is decided through a lottery that was conducted by the UDD at 11 am for 29 municipal corporations across the state, where polls have been recently concluded.
As per the rotational system, Thane and Bhiwandi-Nizampur are expected to have mayor from the SC category.
The Mayor’s posts in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) has been reserved as follows: General Woman, Navi Mumbai – General Woman, Panvel – OBC, Thane – SC, Ulhasnagar – OBC General, Kalyan-Dombivali – ST, Vasai-Virar – General.
The formal election for the mayor is scheduled to be held on January 28, when the newly elected 227 corporators will cast their votes.
It is pertinent to note that the reservation announcement comes in the backdrop of a major political shift in Mumbai’s civic power structure.
The procedure was, however, opposed by Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and former Mumbai mayor Kishori Pednekar, who claimed that the rules to arrive at this decision were changed without informing anyone.
She said the last two mayors were from the general category, so the new mayor should have been from the Other Backward Classes (OBC) or the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category.
The lottery determines the category for which the mayor's post will be reserved, such as general, women, SC, ST, and OBC categories. Once the category is announced, eligible candidates file their nominations.