MUMBAI: With the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections slated for October, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) central leadership on Friday announced the appointment of Ashish Shelar as Mumbai unit president.
Shelar is a Maratha, has been a councillor and is a two-time MLA from Bandra West.
Shelar, known for his organisational skills, was Mumbai president in 2017 when the party contested the BMC elections on its own and won 83 seats, one seat less than the Shiv Sena.
This time it is aiming for a full majority on its own and having its own mayor in the country’s richest municipal corporation.
Shelar — who was hoping to be state unit president — replaces Mangalprabhat Lodha, who is now a cabinet minister.
Instead, the central leadership announced the appointment of Chandrashekhar Bawankule as state unit president replacing Chandrakant Patil who is now a minister in the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government.
Bawankule was energy minister in the Fadnavis led BJP-Sena government.
He was denied a ticket for the 2019 assembly elections.
He belongs to the influential Teli community (OBC) in the Vidarbha region.
Denying him the assembly ticket for the 2019 elections had proved costly for the BJP.
He is now an MLC.
