Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
In the municipal corporation, newly elected corporators are required to register their political group (Gut) with the divisional commissioner. The numerical strength of a group determines its advantage while selecting members for the standing committee and other bodies. The BJP has the highest number of corporators, with 57 members, and this gut will have to be registered with the divisional commissionerate. For this purpose, a meeting of corporators will have to be convened next week. Notably, the rules for gut registration have been made extremely stringent this year.
Through a letter, the divisional commissioner has informed the municipal commissioner that political parties must register the selection of their group (gut) leader. The required documents include a recommendation letter for the group leader’s registration, proof that a group meeting was convened and that notice of the meeting was served to members, the resolution passed regarding the election of the group leader along with the names of the proposer and seconder, the group’s rules and constitution, and copies of Aadhaar cards and passport-size photographs of all group members.
In the municipal corporation, the BJP has 57 members, followed by the AIMIM with 33, the Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena with 13, the Uddhav Thackeray faction with 6, the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi with 4, and one corporator each from the Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP. Parties with smaller numbers are likely to join hands with others to form larger groups. If the VBA and the Uddhav Sena together form a group (gut) of 10 members, one of their members would be eligible to be nominated to the standing committee every year. Sources said that movements in this direction have already begun.
The BJP may convene a meeting of all its corporators on 7 February to formally constitute its group. The group leader will be elected in this meeting, following which further procedures will be carried out.