4-Time MLA Varsha Gaikwad Appointed Mumbai Congress Chief, 1st Woman To Hold Post

Four-time MLA Varsha Gaikwad has been appointed as the Mumbai Congress chief and became the first woman to hold this post.

Congress on Friday appointed four-time MLA Varsha Gaikwad as its Mumbai chief ahead of the crucial civic body polls, expected to be held before the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. With the appointment, Gaikwad becomes the first woman to hold the post. Now, she faces a daunting task of rejuvenating the party cadre ahead of elections to the civic body as well as Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly, reported PTI. 

Notably, elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), long due, are expected to be held before the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. 

Gaikwad replaced Bhai Jagtap as the city Congress chief becoming the first woman to hold this post. 

The Congress could not win a single seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Mumbai. The city has six Lok Sabha and 36 Assembly seats. 

Gaikwad (48) represents Dharavi -- known as the country's biggest slum cluster -- in the Assembly. According to PTI, she has worked as a lecturer at the Siddharth College of Arts, Science and Commerce here before entering politics. She holds a master's degree in mathematics. 

She was earlier a minister in the Democratic Front government of the Congress and NCP and later in Maha Vikas Aghadi government of the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena. Her father late Eknath Gaikwad had served as Maharashtra Congress chief during 2017-2020.  

Meanwhile, a rift between Shiv Sena and BJP alliance in Maharashtra is likely to have evolved as Sena MP and Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's son Shrikant Shinde on Friday slammed the BJP leaders in Kalyan-Dombivli unit for engaging in "selfish politics" and offered to resign from his post.

The development comes a day after the local BJP leaders held a meeting in Dombivli where they decided not to throw their weight behind Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

The cause of the possible rift between the two parties who went into an alliance is believed to be a molestation case filed against BJP's Dombivli East Mandal president Nandu Joshi. Reacting to this, the local BJP leaders alleged that Nandu Joshi was framed by the Shiv Sena and the FIR was registered at the Dombivli Manpada Police Station at the behest of the Sena leaders in a bid to settle political scores.

Speaking amid the political tension, Shrikant Shinde said he does not aspire for any post and it is the senior leaders of the BJP-Sena alliance who will take the call on who to nominate in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.