MUMBAI: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has said the next Mumbai mayor will be from the ruling Mahayuti and "both Hindu and Marathi", amid claims and counter-claims by political parties over who should occupy the city's top civic post.
"The Mumbai mayor will be from the Mahayuti. 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 (MNS).
After uniting with the 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 the BJP's pitch by stating that Mumbai will have a Hindu and Marathi mayor, further intensifying the political sparring as campaigning for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections gathers pace.
Fandavis 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 minister 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 had 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, and votes will be counted the next day.