No money, no office, and little respect from babus: How Mumbai’s ex-corporators fight to stay relevant without BMC elections for 3 years

The going has been tough for the city’s former corporators, who have continued to engage in public service to maintain their political relevance, grappling with hurdles like absence of financial resources and their diminishing relevance in the eyes of bureaucrats.

Lack of funds: A major roadblock

During the 2017 civic elections, Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Rita Makwana became a municipal corporator for the first time by winning her seat from south Mumbai’s Kalbadevi. Throughout her five-year tenure, Makwana was instrumental in resolving grievances of the citizens while operating from her office space in Gazdar Street. A year after the general body of elected representatives got dissolved, Makwana was compelled to shut down her office since she could not bear the monthly rent of Rs 25,000, along with other expenses like utility charges, maintenance costs, etc.

“After shutting down my office space in Gazdar Street, I rented out another small office at Kalbadevi, close to my residence. However, within six months, I had to shut down this office as well, since it was getting difficult for me to pay for the rent and resources,” Makwana tells The Indian Express.

BMC workers fill a pothole on SV road at Andheri West in Mumbai on 12 December 2024. (Express photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee)

The first to enter politics from her family, Makwana says that even though she does not have an office today, she continues to stay in touch with her constituents through phone calls and WhatsApp messages.

“Earlier, people would turn up in my office with their problems and I would resolve them or connect them with civic officials for further escalation. Today, they connect with me through calls and messages and I respond immediately. I also hold meetings at my home and in public spaces to maintain my connection with people. It is true that there is a lack of resources, however, since we are elected public servants, it is also unfair to give an excuse to people and send them back when they come to us, seeking help,” she says.

During their tenure, each corporator would get a monthly honorarium of Rs 25,000. Besides this, each corporator would also get Rs 1.25 crore annually from the BMC’s budget as part of a Local Area Development (LAD) fund to carry out civic works at the ward level.

In South Central Mumbai’s Sewri, Sachin Padwal, a former corporator from an undivided Shiv Sena, says he was approached by one of his constituents recently for setting up a water tank as their tank got damaged during the last monsoon. Padwal, who is working out of a local Shiv Sena shakha (branch office) recalls that he had to immediately shell out Rs 10,000 from his pocket to set up the tank in the shanties.

“People in our constituencies, especially those living in the slum areas, still believe that we are their corporator. They come to us seeking solutions, and being their elected member, we cannot ask them to go somewhere else. As a result, we often spend money from our own pockets or generate revenue to solve their problems,” says Padwal.

Padwal, who is now part of the Shiv Sena (UBT), says historically, Sena corporators have been working from their shakhas which relieves them of the financial burden of maintaining a personal office – an issue that has crippled many former corporators from the BJP, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

However, the lack of civic funds continues to be a major hurdle.

“There are times when we are approached by people from our constituency for installing or fixing sewage lines…we request contractors to carry out the work at the minimum price possible on credit since we do not have access to funds. If the size of the work is huge, we generate revenue amongst our party members and get the work done,” he explains.

Padwal maintains that there have been instances when they had to generate around Rs 7-8 lakh annually for laying water lines. “The average cost of a water pipe is around Rs 42 per foot and the plumbers charge around Rs 2,000 for every foot of work. Annually, at least 10-15 such works have been coming to us and we had no other option than resolving them on our own, as the civic authorities take longer time to resolve these issues since we are not in power,” Padwal says.

When the term of the elected representatives ended on March 7, 2022, out of the 227 total corporators in the BMC, 88 were from the undivided Shiv Sena, 80 from the BJP, 31 from the Congress, nine from the undivided NCP, seven from Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, six from Samajwadi Party and two from All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen. Four corporators had passed away.

According to Padwal, at present, 64 of the undivided Shiv Sena corporators are with the Shiv Sena (UBT).

An investigation report published by The Indian Express on February 1 last year highlighted that the BMC was allotting a fund of Rs 5 crore for every corporator’s ward soon after he or she switched sides to join the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena or the BJP from Opposition parties, the Congress, NCP (SP) or Shiv Sena (UBT).

Sena Shakha at Sewri where Sachin Padwal used to work from when he was the corporator of the area. (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)

Baban Kanavje, a former corporator who is now part of the NCP’s Sharad Pawar faction, says that several former corporators have switched to the BJP and the Shinde-led Sena to maintain their political relevance.

“For any corporator, operating without funds is very difficult. Some senior leaders from a party may operate from the party headquarters or offices, but not everyone can do so, because a corporator’s work is entirely in his ward. As a result, many corporators from Opposition parties have switched sides in the last two years since they are getting Rs 5 crore from BMC’s corpus soon after they join the Shinde-led Sena or BJP,” says Kanavje.

Political one-upmanship vs development

Mumbai has 227 corporator wards, which are divided under 36 MLA constituencies. Since the BMC does not have an elected body since March 2022, an internal directive approved by the civic administration in February last year has empowered MLAs to withdraw a maximum of Rs 35 crore from the civic body’s corpus for executing works in their constituencies. However, the BMC’s record shows that between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024, only 21 MLAs from the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena faction have received these funds, while those in the Opposition drew a blank.

Asif Zakaria, who has served as the Congress corporator from Bandra since 2005, says that often MLAs from the ruling party would not release funds for carrying out work in wards whose last elected corporator belonged to the Opposition.

“There have been many instances when a former corporator belonging to the Opposition party had proposed certain works for the area to the BMC, but the entire work was carried out under the name of the ruling BJP or Sena MLA. This way, it gets difficult for politicians to keep their flock together because by staying out of office for a longer period, it becomes difficult for someone to maintain relevance, because at the end of the day, it’s the people who want results,” says Zakaria.

Echoing Zakaria’s sentiments, Virendra Choudhary, former Congress corporator from Malad, says that even officials and bureaucrats refrain from clearing the files of civic infrastructure projects as they do not belong to the ruling alliance.

“In many cases, civic officials, including senior bureaucrats, refrain from giving appointments to delegations of opposing party members, as a result of which, we are unable to put forward our demands to them. This has been happening continuously for more than two years now,” Choudhary adds.

However, former BJP corporator and member of the civic body’s standing committee, Rajashree Shirwadkar maintains that earlier, when the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was in power between 2019-2022, similar treatment was shown towards BJP corporators, who were in the Opposition then.

“The body of elected representatives dissolved in March 2022 when the MVA was in power. During that time, MLAs from the then undivided Sena, Congress and NCP would always favour their corporators and we would get the dust. It was only after the Mahayuti government came to power that projects and works pitched by former BJP corporators started to get streamlined,” says Shirwadkar.

‘No money, but can’t say no’: A former corporator’s struggle

These last 33 months have been the longest time that Mumbai’s civic body has remained without a body of elected representatives in its 135-year-old history, since its foundation in 1889.

Prior to this, it was only once, between March 1984 and April 1985, that administrator’s rule was imposed in the BMC during the erstwhile Congress regime. Elections were held later and the new council of elected representatives took oath in May 1985.

Senior political researchers and party leaders maintain that besides keeping up with people’s demands, corporators are also struggling to stay relevant.

Political analyst and writer Surendra Jondhale says that corporators can perform two kinds of duties, one official and the other social. “Since they are out of power and do not have resources under their dispensation, it is difficult for them to continue with official duties as they require funds and resources. However, social service must not stop for them. For example, if someone is struggling to generate a birth certificate or receiving inflated electricity bills, the corporators can intervene and resolve the issue. This way, they can maintain their goodwill as well as relevance,” says Jondhale.

“Unlike the state or national elections, civic election results are determined by hyperlocal factors. People always prefer voting for a representative who is approachable and will be available round the clock. Now that we do not have access to our resources, it becomes challenging to get people’s work done because there are certain issues that require substantial funds,” says Sandeep Patil, a former BJP corporator from Goregaon.

“For example, issues related to fixing sewage lines or carrying out pavement works at a footpath. In these cases, there is a conflict in keeping up one’s relevance because on one hand you do not have the money to execute the work; on the other hand, you cannot say ‘no’ to the citizens who voted you to power,” Patil adds.