Ensure next mayor of Mumbai will be from BJP: Nadda tells party workers

Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda on Wednesday called for collective efforts by the party to ensure that the next mayor of Mumbai is from the BJP.

Addressing the party functionaries at a meeting here, Nadda said, "We all need to work in such a way that the next mayor of Mumbai city will be from BJP".

Pointing at the attendees, he said, "With your strength, we need not have to think twice about this resolution (installing mayor of BJP)".

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Nadda advised BJP workers to develop skills of listening to the people.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come up with various skill development courses for people. Our party workers should develop some skills as well including the ability to listen to the people. People should feel that a BJP worker listens to them with patience and is reliable to solve their problems,” he said.

A party worker is the one who always maintains the party's image in public, Nadda added.

The BJP chief is on a two-day visit to Maharashtra beginning Wednesday during which he will meet state BJP leaders.

Nadda's comments on the next mayor of Mumbai are likely to ruffle the feathers of estranged ally-turned-foe Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), which has ruled the Mumbai civic body for over two decades as Shiv Sena (undivided) till March 2022, and considers Mumbai as its citadel.

The last mayor of Mumbai before the five-year term of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) ended in March 2022 was Kishori Pednekar, who belongs to Uddhav Thackeray-led faction. The state government appointed the administrator in the BMC as elections could not be held before the expiry of the five-year term.

In the 2017 BMC elections, the BJP made giant strides by winning 82 of 227 seats, just two seats behind the Shiv Sena (undivided).