Woman-heavy BMC may fare better

With 121 women corporators in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), people are looking up to them to solve the persistent problems in the city.

Experts said they would be able to understand the city’s plight better than the men corporators. Women corporators might be able to do justice to the civic body’s Rs1,200-crore gender budget — especially meant for underprivileged women — which has been lying underused.

Corporators such as mayor Shradda Jadhav and Ashwini Mate (Shiv Sena), Geeta Gawli and Vandana Gawli (Akhil Bharatiya Sena), Ujjwala Modak and Shailaja Girkar (BJP) are among those who won in the general category.

“If women corporators form a consensus over issues such as health, water, garbage, and open spaces, they can contribute a lot to the society. They can urge their parties to solve the problems,” said a senior retired corporator.

Though the experts feel that the presence of women in the civic body will definitely make a difference in the city’s representation, their male counterparts feel otherwise. They said the general body meeting would be a battleground for catfights during debates. “One can never predict to which level women can take an argument,” said a corporator. He recalled a fight in the house in 1999 when the then Samajwadi Party corporator and present Congress corporator Waqarunnisa Ansari was beaten by women corporators.

Shraddha Jadhav, who won a general category seat from Antop Hill by defeating three-term Congress corporator Ravi Raja, said:

“We in Sena will ensure the new women corporators are trained to represent their areas. This will help them to tackle their day-to-day issues as corporators and they will not have to depend on others,” said Jadhav, who won by a margin of only 305 votes.