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By:

Abhijit Mulye

21 August 2024 at 11:29:11 am

Shinde dilutes demand

Likely to be content with Deputy Mayor’s post in Mumbai Mumbai: In a decisive shift that redraws the power dynamics of Maharashtra’s urban politics, the standoff over the prestigious Mumbai Mayor’s post has ended with a strategic compromise. Following days of resort politics and intense backroom negotiations, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has reportedly diluted its demand for the top job in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), settling instead for the Deputy Mayor’s post. This...

Shinde dilutes demand

Likely to be content with Deputy Mayor’s post in Mumbai Mumbai: In a decisive shift that redraws the power dynamics of Maharashtra’s urban politics, the standoff over the prestigious Mumbai Mayor’s post has ended with a strategic compromise. Following days of resort politics and intense backroom negotiations, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has reportedly diluted its demand for the top job in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), settling instead for the Deputy Mayor’s post. This development, confirmed by high-ranking party insiders, follows the realization that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) effectively ceded its claims on the Kalyan-Dombivali Municipal Corporation (KDMC) to protect the alliance, facilitating a “Mumbai for BJP, Kalyan for Shinde” power-sharing formula. The compromise marks a complete role reversal between the BJP and the Shiv Sena. Both the political parties were in alliance with each other for over 25 years before 2017 civic polls. Back then the BJP used to get the post of Deputy Mayor while the Shiv Sena always enjoyed the mayor’s position. In 2017 a surging BJP (82 seats) had paused its aggression to support the undivided Shiv Sena (84 seats), preferring to be out of power in the Corporation to keep the saffron alliance intact. Today, the numbers dictate a different reality. In the recently concluded elections BJP emerged as the single largest party in Mumbai with 89 seats, while the Shinde faction secured 29. Although the Shinde faction acted as the “kingmaker”—pushing the alliance past the majority mark of 114—the sheer numerical gap made their claim to the mayor’s post untenable in the long run. KDMC Factor The catalyst for this truce lies 40 kilometers north of Mumbai in Kalyan-Dombivali, a region considered the impregnable fortress of Eknath Shinde and his son, MP Shrikant Shinde. While the BJP performed exceptionally well in KDMC, winning 50 seats compared to the Shinde faction’s 53, the lotter for the reservation of mayor’s post in KDMC turned the tables decisively in favor of Shiv Sena there. In the lottery, the KDMC mayor’ post went to be reserved for the Scheduled Tribe candidate. The BJP doesn’t have any such candidate among elected corporatros in KDMC. This cleared the way for Shiv Sena. Also, the Shiv Sena tied hands with the MNS in the corporation effectively weakening the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s alliance with them. Party insiders suggest that once it became clear the BJP would not pursue the KDMC Mayor’s chair—effectively acknowledging it as Shinde’s fiefdom—he agreed to scale down his demands in the capital. “We have practically no hope of installing a BJP Mayor in Kalyan-Dombivali without shattering the alliance locally,” a Mumbai BJP secretary admitted and added, “Letting the KDMC become Shinde’s home turf is the price for securing the Mumbai Mayor’s bungalow for a BJP corporator for the first time in history.” The formal elections for the Mayoral posts are scheduled for later this month. While the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA)—led by the Shiv Sena (UBT)—has vowed to field candidates, the arithmetic heavily favors the ruling alliance. For Eknath Shinde, accepting the Deputy Mayor’s post in Mumbai is a tactical retreat. It allows him to consolidate his power in the MMR belt (Thane and Kalyan) while remaining a partner in Mumbai’s governance. For the BJP, this is a crowning moment; after playing second fiddle in the BMC for decades, they are poised to finally install their own “First Citizen” of Mumbai.

Life Denied

The death of a seven-month-pregnant woman in Pune after allegedly being denied emergency care by the prestigious Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital (DMH) is a blistering indictment of how even charitable healthcare institutions established in memory of icons can falter in their most basic moral duty to save lives without prejudice or precondition.


Suffering from pregnancy-related complications, the deceased was taken to DMH by her husband, who claims the hospital demanded a Rs. 10 lakh deposit before initiating treatment. Despite his immediate offer of Rs. 2.5 lakh, the hospital allegedly refused to act. The delay in treatment set off a desperate hunt for a facility that would accept her. Eventually, the 26-year-old lady delivered premature twin girls at another hospital only to succumb to postnatal complications days later.


That this occurred at DMH, a hospital founded by the family of Lata Mangeshkar, a beloved national figure, is especially jarring. It was intended to embody service and care for all, not to become a cautionary tale of profit over principle.


The hospital, while claiming that misleading reports about the incident are circulating in the media, maintains that the deceased did not require emergency care at the time of examination and that she was advised to be admitted for observation. The DMH claims that the patient had allegedly left without informing hospital staff. Moreover, DMH asserts that it had supported the deceased in the past in providing partial charity for a surgery in 2022 and had warned her repeatedly about the risks associated with her high-risk pregnancy.


Even if all this were true, the broader ethical question remains: when a patient in visible distress arrives at your doorstep, do you default to protocol or to humanity?


Emergency rooms are not billing counters. When institutions demand astronomical sums before even beginning treatment, they effectively filter patients by wallet size, not medical urgency. Even in the private sector, this approach is increasingly untenable. In a charitable hospital, it is unconscionable. The claim that the deceased was “stable” and that no one approached the administration for charity assistance sounds less like a medical judgment and more like bureaucratic buck-passing.


Public outrage has been swift and sustained in the aftermath of the tragedy. Political leaders, sensing an emotive flashpoint, have promised justice. But systemic reform is harder to promise and even harder to deliver.


There is an urgent need for enforceable legislation that compels all hospitals, especially those with charitable status, to provide stabilising emergency care without demanding upfront payments. Charitable institutions, after all, enjoy tax exemptions and public goodwill based on a presumed ethos of service. That social contract must be honoured, not exploited.


This tragedy should prompt a national reckoning with the commodification of healthcare in India. It should not disappear into yet another file. It should haunt policymakers, regulators and healthcare administrators until they deliver a system where no one is denied the right to live because they could not pay in time.

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