Mumbai will get Mahayuti mayor, no new political equations: Shinde

Mumbai: Mumbai will have a Mahayuti mayor, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said on Monday, January 19, dismissing reports of new political equations after the results of civic polls were declared last week.

Similarly, mayors of the Mahayuti alliance will be installed in those civic bodies where the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had contested the elections together, he told reporters.

Dismissing rumours, Shinde said the Shiv Sena would not take any decision that goes against the people’s mandate.

Shinde’s assertion comes amid intense debate over the shifting of 29 corporators-elect of Shiv Sena to a hotel in Mumbai after the BJP–Shiv Sena alliance secured a narrow majority in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

There is speculation that Shinde is keen to secure the BMC mayor’s post for the Shiv Sena—at least for the first two-and-a-half years—since it is the birth centenary year of party founder late Bal Thackeray.

“Shiv Sena and BJP had fought the Mumbai civic elections as an alliance, and therefore the Mahayuti’s candidate would become the mayor. The same decision would be followed in Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli, Ulhasnagar and other municipal corporations where the alliance contested jointly,” Shinde told reporters on Monday.

Officially, the Shiv Sena maintains that the newly elected members were shifted to the hotel for an orientation workshop to make them aware of the functioning of the country’s richest civic body.

The move followed the declaration of the BMC poll results, which showed that the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena had emerged as the second largest party after the BJP by winning 65 seats.

The BJP won 89 seats and its ally, the Shiv Sena, 29, handing the Mahayuti combine a narrow majority in the 227-member BMC.

Shinde said Mumbaikars had voted for the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance with trust and that trust would be respected.

He also said there was no truth in reports of new political equations being formed in Mumbai or elsewhere in Maharashtra, and the Mahayuti would have the mayoral leadership wherever the alliance had contested together.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena stated in a release that although no single party has secured a clear majority, the people’s mandate favoured the Sena-BJP alliance in Mumbai.