BJP Forms 27-Member Steering Committee For BMC Polls

BJP Forms 27-Member Steering Committee For BMC Polls

In the lead up to the BMC Elections, BJP has declared its steering committee for BMC elections tasked to conduct comprehensive ward-wise review and submit detailed reports to its Mumbai BJP President and minister Ashish Shelar.

The prime job of the committee is to spread head party’s election strategy and the committee members are expected to submit their first report to Mumbai BJP office by July 7.

The announcement of BJP’s steering committee comes days following the state government’s amendment of the civic poll process to bring electoral ward boundary drafting under its direct oversight through the Urban Development Department (UDD) a step that could tilt the scales in favour of the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in the upcoming municipal elections. 

The Shelar-headed steering committee for the BMC elections consists 27 key Mumbai BJP leaders, including current and former MPs, MLAs, former corporators and Yuva morcha leaders. 
The responsibility for reviewing the North Mumbai district has been assigned to MLAs Atul Bhatkhalkar and Yogesh Sagar. The North West district will be reviewed by MLAs Ameet Satam and Vidya Thakur. MLA Mihir Kotecha and former MP Manoj Kotak will review the North East district, while MLAs Parag Alavani and Sanjay Upadhyay have been given charge of the North Central district. 
The South Central district will be reviewed by MLA Prasad Lad and former MLA Sunil Rane, while South Mumbai district will be reviewed by Minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha and Legislative Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar. 

BMC’s election department in the meanwhile, is conducting ground visits to decide the boundaries of 227 electoral wards. Earlier there were reports that due to new roads, storm water drains and other infrastructural developments in Mumbai since 2017, is likely to have minor changes in the ward boundaries. Following the completion of the eight step process, the BMC was earlier going to notify the ward delimitation on September 4.
However, in a politically charged move, the Maharashtra government involved of two secretaries of the UDD in drafting the electoral ward boundaries due to which the schedule for the final announcement of the wards got extended. The final ward delimitation notification is now expected between October 3 to 6.

This also leads to deferrement of civic polls to November end. 

News Edit KV Raman