Vaishali Bankar is Pune's 52nd mayor, Mankar deputy mayor

First-time corporator Vaishali Bankar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) became the 52nd mayor of Pune on Thursday. Deepak Mankar of the Congress was elected deputy mayor.

Bankar is the seventh woman in the history of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to hold the post. The election was held at the first meeting of the new general body.

The mayor’s post was reserved for a woman from the other backward classes (OBC) this time.

The total strength of the house is 152. Bankar got 82 votes and won with support from the Congress and the Republican Party of India (RPI). The other candidate in the fray for the mayor’s post was Varsha Tapkir of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). She received 41 votes, while 29 corporators of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) remained neutral.

Bankar is the third corporator from her family. Her father-in-law and then her husband Sunil have also served as corporators. She runs a cooperative credit society for women.

Deepak Mankar, official candidate of the Congress too received 82 votes as the Congress and the RPI corporators supported him.

Other candidates in the fray for the post were Mukari Shetty Algude of the Congress and Vijay Deshmukh of the Shiv Sena. Algude withdrew his nomination, while Deshmukh received 41 votes. Again, the MNS abstained from voting. The candidature of Mankar had brought to light the fissures within the Congress, with Shivajinagar MLA Vinayak Nimhan throwing his weight behind Algude.

On Thursday, Nimhan, Vadagonsheri MLA Bapusaheb Pathare, MLC Anil Bhosale, were present at the GB hall to observe the voting process.

The RPI which fought the civic elections in alliance with the BJP and the Shiv Sena, supported the NCP in the hous