Pune: Now that the mayor and deputy mayor of the Pune Municipal Corporation are in place, corporators are eyeing plum posts on the standing, law, sports, and women and child welfare committees, among others, as the elections are scheduled for Friday. Civic officials said each committee can accommodate 16 members, including chairman. Together, all parties can assign posts to around 100 of the 165 corporators on the panels.The selection of co-opted or nominated members to the general body is also expected in the coming days. BJP with 119 corporators can co-opt seven members, while NCP and Congress can induct two and one member, respectively.Most of the hopefuls are those who could not contest the Jan 15 election. Chairpersons of various party wings and former corporators are also lobbying for a backdoor entry.Chandrakant Patil, a cabinet minister and BJP politician, said the party finalised rules for selection of co-opted members and those will be followed. “The candidates who got tickets but could not win the poll will not be entertained,” he said.Each nominated member will get a term of two and a half years, and in this way 14 party workers can get a chance to be in the house in the next five years, Patil said.NCP’s Nilesh Nikam, leader of the opposition, said, “We sought the names for nominated members from aspirants. A list will be sent to the party office and names will be finalised after due diligence.” BJP office-bearers said the party, which took a policy decision not to give tickets to relatives of MLAs and MPs, may implement it for co-opted members as well. PMC officials said along with the co-opted corporators at the general body level, members are also nominated at the ward level. They will be part of the ward committee and work along with elected corporators. The Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act states these nominated members “are selected amongst the members of recognised non-government and community-based organisations engaged in social welfare activities working within the area of the ward committee.” The persons must be registered as electors in the ward within the jurisdiction of the committee.
