As the state election commission (SEC) on Monday announced the dates for the upcoming civic elections to be held in January 15 at Mumbai – after a hiatus of four years, Mumbai’s A ward will see a battle of three former corporators fighting the electoral battle to retain their seats as public representatives.
Even though A ward is one of smallest of wards geographically, with only three corporator constituencies – 225, 226 and 227, it is one of the most high-profile wards in the city as it houses most of the key government buildings including the state secretariat (Mantralaya), the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) headquarters, the central and western railway headquarters at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and Churchgate, along with official bungalows of bureaucrats, ministers and politicians as well as headquarters of prominent financial institutions.
Despite the VIP tag, A ward is not without its own civic issues.
Being close to tourist locations such as Gateway of India, Fort and Colaba, the issue of illegal encroachments on the roads and pavements dominates the list of civic problems that confront it.
This issue is followed by a common parking menace, which largely involves citizens parking their four wheelers on the pavements leaving little or no space for pedestrians. Another key issue that plague this ward involves encroachment in public spaces like gardens.
From February 2017 till March 2022, the constituency of 225 had then undivided Shiv Sena’s Sujata Sanap as the sitting corporator.
Following the vertical split in the party, Sanap moved to the Eknath Shinde-led Sena. Meanwhile, for the constituencies 226 and 227, BJP’s Harshita Narwekar and Makarand Narwekar served as the sitting corporators respectively.
While all the three candidates are confident of getting tickets from their parties, they are also sure to retain their seats by a landslide.
Earlier in November this year, the BMC administration carried out a lottery of the seats. While the ward number 226 got reserved for an OBC candidate, the ward number 227 got reserved for a woman candidate.
“I am confident of getting a ticket from my party once again this time. One of the key agendas that I want to take up once I am elected is to make the entire Colaba-Churchgate area pedestrian friendly. Post pandemic we have seen illegal hawkers mushrooming on the streets of Mumbai and with the lack of a proper pedestrian policy this issue has only gotten escalated with time. Therefore, my priority is to derive a proper policy that will bring an end to these problems,” Makarand told the Indian Express.
In January 2026, Makarand is hopeful of contesting the election for the third consecutive time – if he secures a ticket from the party.
Meanwhile Harshita stated that, when elected, one of her key agendas will be to ensure that development and climate resilience goes hand-in-hand in her constituency.
According to the BMC’s dashboard – A ward has as many as 17 open spaces and gardens including the Oval Maidan, Cooperage Garden and Azad Maidan.
“With air pollution woes grappling Mumbai for a while one of the key issues that I want to address is to amplify the green cover of my area to ensure development and sustainability goes hand in hand,” Harshita said.
In the next elections, Harshita will be contesting for the second time in a row.
The A ward falls under the Colaba assembly constituency which has Rahul Narwekar as the sitting MLA. The corporators said that since Colaba had a BJP legislator, they would recommend civic projects to the MLA who would provide funds for executing them from the MLA’s fund quota.
Mumbai south MP Arvind Sawant from the opposition Shiv Sena (UBT) said that the issue of illegal encroachment in Colaba, Cuffe Parade is entirely man-made and the civic body and the BMC along with the state government needs to chalk out a policy.
“The current rules that are in place is arbitrary. Often the administration evicts slum dwellers without giving any proper notices, while illegal hawkers gets to do their business. There is no uniformity and there is a need to chalk out a uniform policy that can foster development as well as crack the whip against illegal encroachment,”Sawant said.
Meanwhile, local residents state that once the body of elected representatives come to force, the corporators should take them into consideration whenever a new policy decision is being framed.
“At the end of the day, the policies are being chalked out for local residents only and it’s the residents who have a better understanding of the problems that exist on ground. For example, the issue of parking is a serious problem. In the A,B,C and D roads there is hardly any place to drive a car as the entire road is filled with double parking lanes for cars. To identify issues like these, the local residents need to be consulted for a better understanding,” Ashok Gupta, vice president of the Marine Drive Resident’s Association told The Indian Express.
“For the last four years, only bureaucrats ran the show in BMC. However, now that corporators will come back to power, we are hoping that dialogue will resume,” he added.
According to the BMC’s dashboard - A ward has as many as 17 open spaces and gardens including the Oval Maidan, Cooperage Garden and Azad Maidan.
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