Nagpur's 53rd mayor will be from general category

Nagpur: The 53rd mayor of Nagpur will be from the general category. The urban development department of Maharashtra government has reserved the post of Nagpur Municipal Corporation mayor for general candidate from open (woman) to general.

Senior BJP corporators Sandip Joshi, Dayashankar Tiwari and Sanjay Bangale are among the front runners for the post.

However, BJP may appoint an OBC as the mayor as had happened in the case of incumbent mayor Nanda Jichkar.

Though the next mayor should have been elected for two-and-half-years, the next mayor will get only 27 months after Jichkar got a near three-month extension. With the mayor’s election, the ruling party will also replace deputy mayor Deepraj Pardikar.

Apart from Nagpur, the state has also reserved the mayoral post for women in 14 municipal corporations in the state.

The lottery for reservation for mayoral posts in 27 municipal corporations was announced in Mumbai on Wednesday. In Vidarbha, Chandrapur and Akola cities will have woman mayors from general category, while Amravati city will have mayor from OBC category.

After the draw of lots, the election hustle would be back in 27 cities including Nagpur. Maharashtra has been witnessing intermittent poll campaigning since March when the Lok Sabha elections were announced and last month due to assembly elections.

Joshi, a close aide of former CM Devendra Fadnavis and a former standing committee chairman and ruling party leader, may be chosen as he had worked hard for Fadnavis in the recent assembly elections.

Earlier, MLC Anil Sole and BJP city president Pravin Datke became mayor immediately after being ruling party leaders. So, Joshi’s chances are more, said political experts.

City BJP president Pravin Datke said the next mayor and deputy mayor will be decided in party’s parliamentary board meeting. Many BJP corporators are approaching city MP Nitin Gadkari and former CM Devendra Fadnavis to claim the first citizen’s post.

In Nagpur, the post of mayor was reserved for a woman from open category and Nanda Jichkar was elected in March 2017. While her tenure ended in September 2019, she was given extension owing to Maharashtra assembly elections. Jichkar’s tenure will end on November 21.

With today’s development, officials from civic secretary department said with 106 corporators in the house of 149, BJP has a clear majority. “So 53rd mayor will be from the ruling party only,” the official said.

Now, secretary of NMC Harish Dubey will sent a proposal to the divisional commissioner Sanjeev Kumar for seeking his nod to conduct the poll. Kumar will then nominate district collector to conduct the election process by November 21 and NMC should get its new mayor on November 22. The nomination process will start on November 16.