The BJP has started the process of narrowing down on possible mayoral candidates from among its women corporators as Mumbai's mayoral election is scheduled for Wednesday (February 11).
As per the lottery system, the post of Mumbai mayor is reserved for the open category woman corporator. Among the names being discussed in the BJP are Rajashree Shirvadkar, Sheetal Gambhir Desai, Harshita Narvekar, Ritu Tawde, Alka Kerkar,Swapna Mhatre and Tejasvini Ghosalkar.
Of these, Tejasvini Ghosalkar and Harshita Narvekar are first-time coporators, and so they have less of a chance of being the mayoral candidate of the BJP. Tejasvini joined the BJP from Shiv Sena (UBT) and is the wife of Abhishek Ghosalkar, a Sena (UBT) corporator who was murdered more than a year ago.
Harshita Narvekar is related to Maharashtra legislative assembly speaker Rahul Narvekar.
Seniormost among the other names are Alka Kerkar and Rajashree Shirvadkar. Both have been BJP corporators since 2012. Shirvadkar was chairperson of the Women and Child Welfare Committee of the BJP. She was also a member of the improvements committee, and is known to be a good speaker.
Sheetal Gambhir Desai has been a corporator since 2017. She is the daughter of former (united) Shiv Sena MLA Suresh Gambhir. She got elected from Mahim, a core Marathi votebank of Shiv Sena UBT. She was the Mahila Morcha president for the BJP Mumbai.
Ritu Tawde too has been a corporator since 2017, and her USP is that despite being a Maratha, she has been getting elected from Gujarati dominated area like Ghatkopar. She, too, has been a very effective corporator and party leader in the BMC.
Meanwhile, Eknath Shinde-led Sena is preparing to select a candidate for the post of deputy mayor. The front runners are: Trishna Vishwasrao and Yamini Jadhav, who has been a former legislator as well.