There are six contenders in the fray for five co-opted corporators seats in the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC). As according to the present number game, three candidates maximum can be nominated by Bhartiya Janata Party(BJP) while one each Shiv Sena and Congress.
However, BJP, the ruling party in the MBMC nominated four candidates. The nomination of the co-opted candidates should be immediately after the Municipal Election and Mayoral Election; however, it took nearly 30 months after that. The MBMC election took placed in August 2017, where BJP for the first time comes in the clear majority with 61 seats. The MBMC notified last month about the process for nominating five co-opted members.
After the notification 17 prospective took the forms. However, only six filed their nomination on the 10th of February. MBMC Commissioner Balaji Khatgaonkar will scrutinize the application and the shortlisted names will be tabled before the general body for final approval.
Shiv Sena has nominated North Indian Vikram Pratap Singh, while Congress sole contender is Adv. Shafique Ahmad Khan. Four aspirants who thrown their hat in the ring from BJP are Sohan Singh Rajpurohit, retired MBMC officer Ajit Patil, former corporators Anil Bhosale and Bhagwati Sharma.
Through this, once again a cold war between former MLA Narendra Mehta and MLA Geeta B Jain come on the surface. There is charcha that all the nominated candidates from the BJP sides are Mehta’s supporters. Like in the standing committee members selection, here also Jain’s supporters had not been considered by the party. Jain’s supporter Sanjay Pange has filed the nomination, however, according to the sources, Mehta has rejected his form.
Scrutinize Norms issued by the urban development department in 2012, clearly states that people aspiring for co-opted corporators should have two years’ experience as commissioner, five years as assistant commissioner, five years’ experience of a social organisation, or should be lawyers, engineers or doctors.