The lottery, held in the presence of Urban Development State Minister Madhuri Misal, determined category-wise reservations for mayoral posts across municipal corporations. As per the final list, 16 mayoral positions have been reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC), while 13 fall under the general category. Several of these reservations also include women-only eligibility.
Mumbai will have a woman mayor for the sixth time, with the post reserved for the open category (women). Chandrapur Municipal Corporation will see a woman mayor for the fifth consecutive term, continuing a unique trend where the office has never been held by a man since the civic body’s formation.
However, Shiv Sena (UBT) president and former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray alleged that the reservation rules were tweaked without transparency. Party leaders argued that since the last two Mumbai mayors were from the general category, the mayoral post should have been reserved for either the OBC or ST category this term.
Former Mumbai mayor and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Kishori Pednekar criticised the lottery system, claiming that changes in rotation norms were introduced without prior notice. “The reservation pattern violates established conventions and deprives marginalised communities of rightful representation,” she said.
Objections were also raised in Parbhani, where the mayor’s post has been reserved for a woman, prompting local political groups to question the rationale behind the allocation.
In Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s political stronghold of Thane, the mayoral post has been reserved for the Scheduled Caste category. Kalyan-Dombivli has been reserved for the Scheduled Tribe category, while major civic bodies such as Pune, Nagpur, Pimpri-Chinchwad and Nashik will also have women mayors.
Following the category allocation, eligible candidates will file nominations on dates to be announced by the state election authorities. The mayor in each municipal corporation will then be elected by councillors in a special meeting held under the supervision of a presiding officer. Political parties are expected to issue whips, and councillors defying party directives risk disqualification.
With elections to key civic bodies completed recently, the reservation outcome is set to shape power equations in urban Maharashtra, especially in Mumbai, where control of the BMC remains a high-stakes political contest.
