Varsha Gaikwad (48), a four-time MLA from the country‘s biggest slum cluster, Dharavi, became the first woman president of the Mumbai Congress unit on Friday.
A prominent Dalit face of the Congress, and daughter of former Mumbai Congress chief and Lok Sabha MP, late Eknath Gaikwad, a minister first in the Democratic Front government of the Congress-NCP in 2009 and later in Maha Vikas Aghadi in 2019. Her appointment comes ahead of the crucial Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections with the daunting task of re-energising the party, which has lost all six Lok Sabha seats and managed to win only four Assembly seats in Mumbai. The party won only 31 of 227 corporator seats in the 2017 Mumbai civic polls.
Ms. Gaikwad is confident that together, the MVA would secure victory in the Mumbai civic polls and said people prioritised basic civic amenities over communal and divisive politics. A professor of mathematics, who has never lost the Dharavi seat since her debut in 2004 despite the party’s poor performance in the 2014 and 2019 elections, Ms. Gaikwad also raises concerns over the Dharavi Redevelopment Project’s tender having been awarded to the Adani Group, following the Hindenburg Report, and was apprehensive about the possibility of development being halted midway.
