Six members from BMC's standing committee to contest assembly elections

This picture has been used for representational purposes only

While many corporators (of country's richest civic body) who were seeking nomination for the assembly election remained disappointed due to alliances, six members from the standing committee (who approve all the financial related matters) have got the opportunity to contest.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is considered as the richest civic body with more than Rs. 82,000 crores FD and over Rs. 35,000 crores budget for the year 2019-20. The standing committee with 27 corporators as members have the power to approve or disapprove proposals related to financial matters. Hence, they've been termed as the key of BMC's locker. Six candidates related to the committee are trying their luck in the ongoing assembly election. Ramesh Korgaonkar from Shiv Sena, Parag Shah from BJP, Asif Zakaria from Congress, Geeta Gawli from Akhil Bhartiya Sena and Rais Sheikh from Samajwadi Party are contesting the elections.

Rajul Patel, corporator of Sena, has filed the nomination from Versova as an independent. These six members are directly related to the committee. A corporator of Shiv Sena and chairman of the committee Yashwant Jadhav is not contesting the election. However, his wife and ex corporator Yamini Jadhav is the official nominated candidate of Sena from Byculla.
Vitthal Lokare, a former Congress corporator and member of the standing committee, has taken a risk to leave the party. He's joined Sena and will now be contesting the election.

This is not the first time that the standing committee members are joining a bigger house. In recent history, Rahul Shewale who was the chairman of the standing committee was elected as a Member of Parliament in 2014 Loksabha election. He was re-elected in 2019.

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