Mumbai Jan 17 ( UNI) Three family members of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar got elected in the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections concluded yesterday. All three were elected from BMC wards considered to be A-class seats of the city corporation.
While Narwekar’s brother, Makarand Narwekar, won the elections from Ward No 226 which include parts of the elite Cuffe Parade area, his sister-in-law, Harshita Narwekar, won from Ward No 225, which include the iconic Fort area of Mumbai.
For Makarand, this is the third term in BMC, while for Harshita, this is the second term.
Narwekar’s cousin Gauri Narwekar won from Ward No 227, which includes part of the Colaba area, one of the most happening places of the town.
Narwekar (49), a lawyer by profession, comes from a political family and was elected Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly for the second-time. He is a two-time MLA from Colaba in Mumbai, and considered a confidante of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
His father, Suresh Narwekar, was a municipal councillor from Mumbai.
Earlier, Narwekar was a member of the undivided Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, which he left after the party denied him a ticket in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
He joined the undivided Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party and contested the general election in 2019 from Maval, which he lost.
Thereafter, ahead of 2019 Vidhan Sabha polls, he joined the BJP.
In 2023-24, during his first term as Speaker after the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, he presided over the disqualification and counter-disqualifications of the Shiv Sena and Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP and NCP (SP).
In the run up to the BMC polls, opposition parties including Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SP), MNS and AAP have accused Narwekar of violating the model code of conduct, interfering in nomination process and tampering with CCTV footage linked to the exercise.
