Overview
- The Urban Development Department’s Jan 22 lottery set Mumbai’s mayoral seat for an open-category woman and allocated categories across 29 corporations.
- The BJP–Shinde Sena Mahayuti holds 118 of 227 BMC seats and is organizing internal meetings to choose its group leader and mayoral nominee.
- Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders objected to the lottery, citing an alleged new three-member threshold for ST reservations and an OBC allocation method based on Marathi alphabetical order, which the government rejects as unfounded.
- Candidatures for mayor and deputy mayor are to be filed Jan 27–28, with BMC elections likely on Jan 30–31 at the first general meeting of the new House.
- Fifteen of Maharashtra’s 29 municipal corporations will have women mayors this term, including Mumbai, Pune, Navi Mumbai, Mira-Bhayandar and Nagpur.