Mumbai: Four former mayors of Mumbai, who held the city’s top position at different points of time from 1996 to 2022, and three ex-deputy mayors are contesting the next week’s keenly-watched elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the country’s richest civic body.
Close relatives of some former first citizens of the metropolis are also in the fray this time.
Elections to the BMC and 28 other civic bodies in the state will be held on January 15, and the results will be declared the next day.
Amid a heated political debate over whether Mumbai’s next mayor should be Marathi or non-Marathi and Hindu or Muslim, the Shiv Sena (UBT) has fielded four former mayors and two former deputy mayors while the BJP has given a ticket to a former deputy mayor.
Former mayors Kishori Pednekar (Ward 199), Shraddha Jadhav (Ward 202), Vishakha Raut (Ward 191), and Milind Vaidya (Ward 182), along with former deputy mayors Suhas Wadekar (Ward 41) and Hemangi Waralikar (Ward 193), are contesting on the Shiv Sena (UBT) ticket.
The BJP has fielded former deputy mayor Alka Kerkar.
Shiv Sena (UBT) has also given tickets to close relatives of some former mayors who are not contesting elections themselves. Sena (UBT) MLA and former mayor Sunil Prabhu’s son, Ankit Prabhu, is contesting from Ward 54 in Goregaon East. Sunil Prabhu had served as Mumbai mayor from 2012 to 2014.
Meanwhile, Puja Mahadeshwar, wife of former mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar (2017-2019), is contesting from Ward 87 in Santacruz East.
Congress leader and former mayor Chandrakant Handore’s daughter, Prajyoti Handore, is contesting from Ward 140 in the Chembur-Govandi belt as a Congress candidate. Handore had served as Mumbai mayor
in 1992-93.