129 women corporators in BMC as fifteen win from unreserved seats

Of the 114 seats in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) that were reserved for women, another 15 seats were bagged by them, taking the tally of women corporators in the civic body to 129 or 56% of the total 227 seats. In the 2012 civic elections, there were 124 women corporators

Of the 114 seats in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) that were reserved for women, another 15 seats were bagged by them, taking the tally of women corporators in the civic body to 129 or 56% of the total 227 seats. In the 2012 civic elections, there were 124 women corporators. This was the second election where 50% of the seats were reserved for women. Before the 2012 elections, 30% of the seats were reserved for women, including those for scheduled caste and tribes candidates.

Shiv Sena’s Tejaswini Ghosalkar and Riddhi Khursunge, who won from ward no.1 and ward no.11 respectively, celebrate at Dahisar on Thursday. (Pramod Thakur/HT PHOTO)

After the civic body’s delimitation exercise last year, which saw ward boundaries redrawn and reservation, many parties had lost their strongholds and many new faces were introduced in the newly-formed wards.

The highest number of women elected from the unreserved category are from Borivli East and West, where four women were elected.

Mayor Snehal Ambekar, who had to fight off an internal rebellion over her candidature and Shiv Sena’s Hemangi Worlikar, NGO Praja’s top councillor of 2013, and BJP’s Jyoti Alavni, who fought the 2012 civic elections as an independent and wife of MLA Parag Alavni, were among the 15 who got elected from the unreserved seats.

While there were more women elected to the general body of the BMC, Shiv Sena and BJP’s individual count dropped drastically. While 44 of Sena’s 75 corporators in 2012 were women, only 28 women won this time.Similarly, the count of BJP plunged too, with only 18 women corporators out of its total 82, in comparison to 16 women corporators, out of its 31, in 2012.

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