Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Tuesday said elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will be held in January 2023 even as earlier in the day his deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis said, “only God and the courts know when BMC election will be held.”
Asked when the long-awaited elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation would take place, Fadnavis said it was for the courts to decide. He was apparently referring to the petitions filed in the courts over BMC polls and OBC political quota.
“The decision to hold elections is with the Election Commission, which is an independent institution, and the Supreme Court has ordered a status quo. The government has no role to play in holding,” he said.
The BJP leader agreed that it was not desirable to keep an important civic body like BMC under the control of an administrator for long.
The deputy CM also said the cabinet expansion would be carried out soon. The state Council of Ministers at present has 18 cabinet ministers including Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. There are nine ministers each from the Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena and his ally Bharatiya Janata Party.
The present government took over on June 30 this year after the Uddhav Thackeray-led coalition government of the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress collapsed following Shinde’s rebellion. While on June 30 only Shinde and Fadnavis took oath, the first cabinet expansion took place on August 9. The Council of Ministers can have up to 43 members in Maharashtra.
Fadnavis also called on Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to extend greetings on the festival of Diwali. The two leaders met late Tuesday night at the CM’s official residence ‘Varsha’ in south Mumbai.
After meeting the CM, Fadnavis in a tweet said, “Visited Varsha & met CM @mieknathshinde ji and extended #Deepavali greetings to him and his family, earlier today.”
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