Mumbai

Sheikh Nasreen Khalid of the Islam Party will be the first woman Mayor of the Muslim-majority city of Malegaon in the Nashik district of Maharashtra, while Samajwadi Party corporator Shan-e-Hind Nihal Ahmed will be the first woman Deputy Mayor. Both women were elected by the corporation members.

Both the Islamic Party and the Samajwadi Party have formed a ‘Malegaon Secular Front’ in the 84-member Malegaon Municipal Corporation.

In the election for Mayor-ship, Nasreen Khalid Sheikh got 43 votes

The Shiv Sena, led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, has suffered a major setback in this election. The BJP, which is a partner in power at the Centre and in the state, chose to remain neutral by not participating in the voting.

Sheikh Nasreen Khalid of the Islam Party receiving certificate ofg her election

Shinde group candidate Lata Ghodke, who stood against the Malegaon Secular Front, got only 18 votes. 21 corporators of AIMIM and 2 of BJP boycotted the voting. The contest was a direct one as all the other candidates withdrew their applications.

Samajwadi Party's Shan-e-Hind Nihal Ahmed defeated Shiv Sena (Shinde group) candidate Adv. Nilesh Kakade. Nihal Ahmed got 43 votes, while Nilesh Kakade got 18 votes. In this election too, MIM and BJP kept their distance from voting.

The Malegaon Municipal Corporation elections were held on January 15. In these results, the Islamic Party emerged as the largest party by winning 35 seats. Former MLA Sheikh Asif Sheikh Rashid had formed a new political party, Islam, after leaving Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party during the assembly elections last year.

At that time, this party had to face criticism from many levels. 'Awaz-The-Voice, Marathi' had a detailed review of this by talking to former MLA  Asif Sheikh.

 

 

 

 

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Sheikh Asif has succeeded in establishing his power over the municipal corporation in just a few months after the formation of the party.

The newly elected mayor, Sheikh Nasreen, belongs to a family with a political heritage. She is the wife of Sheikh Khalid, brother of former MLA Asif Sheikh. Asaduddin Owaisi had stated that Mumbai would get a 'burqa-wearing mayor', but the 'Islam' party has made this experiment a success in Malegaon. Sheikh Nasreen's election has once again proven the dominance of the Sheikh Rashid family in Malegaon politics.

Sheikh Rashid and his family have been influential in Malegaon politics for decades. Sheikh Nasreen is the third person from the Rashid family to become mayor.

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Earlier, Sheikh Rashid and his wife, Tahira Rashid, also held the post of mayor of Malegaon. In 2022, Sheikh Rashid left the Congress along with his family and joined the Nationalist Congress Party, which ended the existence of the Congress in Malegaon. However, after the split in the Nationalist Party, Asif Sheikh founded a new party, Islam, and gained dominance over the municipal corporation in the first attempt.