Mumbai’s political landscape heated up as Shiv Sena (UBT) unleashed a scathing attack on the unopposed election of BJP councillor Ritu Tawde as the new Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) mayor. In a fiery editorial in their mouthpiece ‘Saamana’, the party led by Uddhav Thackeray branded the development as a dark day for Maharashtra and a direct assault on Marathi identity.
The Shiv Sena UBT accused the ruling BJP of prioritizing industrialists and big businesses over the interests of local Marathi residents. They claimed this move paves the way for easy land acquisitions for corporate giants, sidelining the common Mumbaikar. ‘A BJP mayor in Mumbai is a crisis for the city and a black mark on Maharashtra’s history,’ the editorial thundered, linking it to historical struggles like the Samyukta Maharashtra movement.
Drawing parallels to past suppressions, the party alleged that just as Morarji Desai unleashed brutality on Marathi agitators, the BJP is now crushing the spirit of Mumbai’s original inhabitants. They accused the BJP of sowing divisions among Marathi voters to seize power, allegedly flooding the system with money to secure the mayor’s post.
Ritu Tawde’s promises to make Mumbai pothole-free, corruption-free, and safe for women were dismissed as laughable. Shiv Sena UBT pointed fingers at the state home ministry under Devendra Fadnavis for failing on women’s safety, tying it to issues like unchecked influx of Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants. The editorial highlighted four years of administrator rule, during which a ‘Gujarat lobby’ allegedly looted BMC funds through fake bills worth thousands of crores, siphoning cuts to the urban development department.
The party challenged the new mayor to expose this corruption or leave the fight to the robust opposition. As Mumbai enters a new era under BJP leadership, tensions between regional pride and development agendas promise to dominate the civic body’s future debates.