The NCP, which emerged as the second-largest party after the BJP in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), on Tuesday declared Nilesh Nikam its leader in the civic body.
The NCP (SP), which has three corporators in PMC, has appointed Sopan Chavan as its leader in the civic body.
Nikam is a senior corporator returning to PMC as an elected member after 14 years. He was elected member of the civic body three times earlier and served as Standing Committee chairman during the NCP government in PMC.
In the PMC elections, the results of which were announced on January 16, the BJP won 119 of the 165 seats, while the Ajit Pawar-led NCP won 27 seats.
Congress won 15 seats, NCP (SP) won three seats and Shiv Sena (UBT) won one.
As per the rules, all political parties have to officially form their respective groups by submitting details of their winning candidates as well as the group leader to the Divisional Commissioner of Pune.
Next, the first meeting of the general civic body is organized to elect the mayor and deputy mayor of the civic body.
The election of mayor and deputy mayor is scheduled for February 6.
“The civic administration has to issue a notice for the mayor’s election after the political party groups and their leaders in the PMC have decided. The notice period is for one week,” said Yogita Bhosale, municipal secretary of the PMC.
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The position of Mayor is reserved for corporate women elected in the general category. Thus, the 76 male entrepreneurs are out of the race.
The BJP, being the largest party, is all set to have one of its corporators elected as mayor, for which many are being considered.
“The post of mayor is reserved for women, so the BJP leader who will become PMC House leader will be a corporate man. There are many candidates for the post, so the name is yet to be finalised,” said a BJP leader.
After the election of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor, the formation of the Standing Committee, City Improvement Committee, Legal Committee, Women and Child Welfare Committee and Sports Committee will be done with corporators as members and one of the members of each committee will be elected as the chairman of the respective committees.