Indian Express 18.06.2010
After two women, next Mayor from open category
Express News Service Tags : corporation, mayor Posted: Fri Jun 18 2010, 02:15 hrs
Mumbai : After two consecutive women mayors, the next mayoral post of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has been reserved for open category, giving an equal chance to both men and women from general or other castes. The elections are due in 2012.In a lottery draw on the reservation of mayor’s posts on Thursday by the State Urban Development Department, BMC along with eight other municipal corporations have been reserved for open category.
The mayoral term is two-and-a-half years and the Shiv Sena’s corporator Shraddha Jadhav holds the post now. “The next mayor in 2012 will be from Congress and we will win with majority,” said leader of opposition and MLA Rajhans Singh after the lottery draw was announced.
He said the decision to give a chance to a man or a woman candidate will be taken then as per the condition. “We are confident of forming the ruling party and making Sena the opposition.”
The decision to make the mayor category open is also being welcomed by male corporators who were denied the chance of contesting over the last three years due to reservations for women. BMC has been more or less dominated by the male corporators for mayoral post. Before 2007 when Shubha Raul was elected due to the reservation, Datta Dalvi, Mahadeo Deole, Hareshwar Patil and Nandu Satam had been the mayors.
Along with Mumbai: Nanded, Nashik, Dhule, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Ulhasnagar, Ahmednagar, Nagpur and Mira-Bhayander municipal corporations would have open categories for mayor.
Thane, Vasai-Virar, Navi Mumbai, Kalyan Dombivli would have OBC reservation(for both males and females). Women from OBC can contest in Pune and Solapur. The mayoral chairs of Jalgaon, Malegaon, Aurangabad, Kolhapur civic bodies would be reserved for women in open category. Sangli corporation would be reserved for SC while Akola for women from SC and Amrawati for ST.
