Mayor elected, over to committees now

After the mayoral elections, the focus is on the crucial panels that make the civic body’s financial and policy decisions.

With the Bharatiya Janata Party deciding not to contest the elections for the chairmanship of the standing and improvements committees, the Shiv Sena will win chairmanship without a fight. But as the BJP will have an equal number of members in these committees, taking decisions will be a challenge for the Sena. The civic standing committee takes decisions on all expenditure proposals, while the improvements committee deals with policy decisions. For the past two decades, the general arrangement between the saffron allies was the Sena would lead the standing committee while the BJP gets the improvements committee.

The municipal secretary department of the BMC on Thursday released a detailed schedule of the elections to the various committees. Apart from the standing and improvements committees that have statutory powers, the civic body has two other committees — education and the EST. There are six other special committees. Among the other parties, the Congress members are unwilling to contest for the standing committee after the bitter experience it had in the mayoral elections, with no support from NCP and Samajwadi Party. This will only be clear on Friday, when nominations for elections to be (on Tuesday) are filed. Sanjay Nirupam, Congress city unit chief, said, “We have not yet decided whether to contest or not.” A Congress corporator not willing to be named said, “There is no point in contesting as BJP and Sena have 10 members each and we only have 3. “

Meanwhile, the confusion over appointment of the opposition leader prevails.