As political campaigning heats up for the city's top civic post, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Friday that the next Mayor of Mumbai will come from the ruling alliance and will be "both Hindu and Marathi."
His comments come as the push for the important Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections builds, with polling set for January 15 and results to be announced on January 16.
The Mumbai mayor will be from the Mahayuti (Bharatiya Janata Party-led ruling alliance). The Mumbai mayor will be a Hindu and a Marathi person, Fadnavis said, responding to a question.
The issue had snowballed after Mumbai BJP president Ameet Satam recently remarked that his party would not allow any "Khan" to become the city's mayor, triggering sharp reactions from the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
After uniting with Sena-UBT chief and his cousin Uddhav Thackeray recently, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray had declared that "Mumbai's mayor will be Marathi, and he will be ours".
Fadnavis has now sharpened his party BJP's pitch by stating that Mumbai will have a Hindu and Marathi mayor, further intensifying the political sparring as campaigning for elections to the 227-member municipal corporation, India's biggest and richest civic body, gathers pace.
The BJP chief minister made the remarks while speaking to 'Mumbai Tak' news channel during an interaction, titled 'Mahachavadi', as he travelled on the city's underground Metro line and answered questions on a range of political issues.
About a query concerning former state minister and his party colleague Kripashankar Singh's reported comments about a north Indian becoming the mayor, the CM said,
Singh had not made the remark in the context of Mumbai. He is not even an official party spokesperson.
Singh said on Wednesday that efforts would be made to ensure the election of a north Indian and Hindi-speaking mayor in the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.
Elections to 29 municipal corporations in the state, including the BMC, will be held on January 15.