The grand alliance of Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)-Republican Party of India (RPI) formed the ruling front in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Friday after the formal election of mayor and the deputy mayor.
Shiv Sena's Sunil Prabhu was elected as the 74th mayor of Mumbai with 125 votes. Deputy mayor Mohan Mithbaokar was elected with 122 votes.
As per the procedure of the House, after taking over as the mayor, Prabhu declared the names of leader of the each party, names of nominated corporators appointed by parties and also names of corporators who were chosen by each party for the four statutory committees in the BMC.
The Thackeray family — Uddhav along with his wife Rashmi and two sons Aditya and Tejas — witnessed the entire proceedings from BMC's corporation hall gallery.
Senior leaders such as Manohar Joshi, Diwakar Raote, Subhash Desai, Ravindra Waikar and other senior former corporators were present to wish Prabhu.
Prabhu was supported by 18 Independent corporators, including Geeta Gawli and Vandana Gawli from Arun Gawli-led Akhil Bhartiya Sena (ABS) apart from 75 corporators from the Sena, 31 corporators from the BJP and one each from the RPI and Bharip Bahujan Mahasangh.
Though all the Independents supported the BJP candidate for the deputy mayor's election, one Independent corporator was absent.
Votes of Independents Trishna Vishwasrao and Sanjana Mungekar were termed invalid as they struck out their signatures which they had put across the Congress's candidate.
Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray pompously declared that 'We've done it - Part II' phase has started for the Sena-BJP-RPI alliance.
"We have achieved almost everything which we had promised to the citizens of Mumbai. This term, we want to concentrate on taking the city to an international level. With the support of alliance members, we will ensure that all corporators work towards the betterment of the city and fulfill the needs of voters. And I am confident of my team of corporators," Uddhav said.
