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Women mayors for city, Thane and Navi Mumbai Mumbai: A draw of lots for reservations to mayoral posts on Wednesday saw the posts of the Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai mayors being set aside for women. Of these, the Mumbai post has been reserved this time for an OBC woman. The last time Mumbai had a woman mayor was in 1997-98 when Sena's Vishaka Raut held the post after the seat was reserved for women. Of the 22 mayoral posts in the state, one is reserved for a candidate from scheduled tribes, two for scheduled castes (one of these for a woman), six for OBCs (two of these for women) and 13 for general category (four of these for women). The reservations are in effect for 2.5 years after which they lapse into the general category. Of the 10 corporations going to polls on Thursday, mayor's posts in nine have been reserved. The system of a lottery for deciding whether the seat should be reserved was started in 1994 following the changes made to the BMC Act after the 74th amendment to the Constitution of India. The Mumbai mayor will be elected before March 10 when the term of the current batch of 227 corporators in the general body ends. The probable names for the city's first citizen's chair include Sena's three-time Malad corporator Anagha Mhatre, sitting Dadar corporator Snehal Jhadav, Mangala Kate, Shubha Raul, Meenal Juwalkar or Congress' Ayesha Shaikh, Vaishali Raut, Anjali Darne, Preeti Raut as well as Rane loyalists Neelam Dolas and Sheetal Mhatre depending upon which party will get the majority in this elections. Twenty of the 227 seats in the BMC house are also reserved for women from the OBC category. While Mumbai and Pimpri-Chinchwad will have OBC women mayors, Thane, Pune and Solapur will have women mayors from the general category. and Ulhasnagar will have a woman SC mayor. THE WRITING ON THE WALL: A policeman outside a polling booth in Mumbai URL : http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDA3LzAyLzAxI0FyMDAyMDI=&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom |
