The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Tuesday, November 11, has announced the reservation draw for the upcoming BMC elections. The draw began at 11 am at Balgandharva Rangmandir in Bandra West. As per the draw, 15 seats have been reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) and two for Scheduled Tribes (ST). At present, all 29 wards of BMC are running without elected representatives and all of them will conduct a lottery of all the wards and constituencies that will go for elections.
Out of the total 227 wards in the Mumbai Municipal Corporation, 114 wards have been reserved for women candidates. According to the reservation draw, 15 wards — 151, 186, 146, 152, 155, 147, 189, 93, 118, 183, 215, 141, 133, 26, and 140 — have been reserved for Scheduled Castes. Of these, 8 wards (133, 183, 147, 186, 155, 118, 151, and 189) have been reserved for women. Additionally, two wards — 53 and 121 — have been reserved for Scheduled Tribes, with ward 121 reserved for women.
For the Backward Class of Citizens (BCC) category, reservations have been announced for 61 wards, including 72, 46, 216, 32, 82, 85, 49, 170, 19, 91, 6, 69, 176, 10, 198, 191, 108, 219, 129, 117, 171, 113, 70, 105, 12, 195, 50, 137, 1, 226, 136, 4, 182, 95, 222, 33, 138, 27, 45, 187, 80, 223, 150, 130, 158, 176, 208, 135, 87, 11, 153, 18, 13, 193, 76, 41, 111, 128, 52, 63, and 100.
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Among those elected as corporators in the 2017 BMC elections, five have since become MLAs. These include Dilip Lande (Ward 163), Anant (Bala) Nar (Ward 77), Ramesh Korgaonkar (Ward 144), BJP’s Murji Patel (Ward 81 — whose caste certificate was later invalidated but who went on to become an MLA), and Samajwadi Party’s Rais Shaikh (Ward 211). As these seats have fallen vacant, new candidates from the respective parties will be selected through a draw.
Four former corporators — BJP’s Sunil Yadav (Ward 80), former deputy mayor Dr Ram Barot (Ward 45), Shiv Sena (Thackeray faction)’s former mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar, and Shahida Harun Khan — have passed away. Their deaths have created four more vacancies.
In total, nine seats are now vacant, providing an opportunity for new aspirants to contest from these wards in the upcoming elections.