Women to outnumber men in new council

The next BMC general body will be dominated by women with seven women winning in seats other than the 114 reserved for them making it 121 women in a council of 227.

The next BMC general body will be dominated by women with seven women winning in seats other than the 114 (50 per cent) reserved for them making it 121 women in a council of 227.

Among the seven who won the open category seats are Mayor Shraddha Jadhav,who retained her ward (169). Jadhav won by a margin 305 votes defeating Congress candidate Ravi Raja,who was corporator from neighbouring ward 166 in the outgoing BMC house. I retained my ward only because of work done in the area, Jadhav said.

Likewise,Shailaja Girkar,a Shiv Sena candidate from Kandivali,won against Congress candidate Pradip Kothari by a huge margin of 8,510 votes,whileVandana Gawli,sister-in-law of gangster-turned politician Arun Gawli won by 5,983 votes against Congress opponent Sameer Chavan.

Interestingly,Shiv Sena had fielded the most number of women candidates in the open category instead of restricting them to seats reserved for women. While other political parties managed to allocate 50 percent of the total seat sshare to women,only Shiv Sena and NCP had allocated 60 percent seats to women candidates. According to the Sena leaders,the decision to field more women candidates was taken only on the basis of electoral merit.

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