The Maharashtra government appointed an administrator to run the Mumbai civic body, established in 1888, after the term of corporators elected in 2017 ended on March 7, 2022. Since then, the administrator, a senior bureaucrat, had been handling day-to-day affairs of India’s largest and richest civic corporation, whose budget for 2025-26 stood at more than Rs 74,400 crore.
Then-BMC commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal was appointed the administrator of the civic body in March 2022. After his transfer from the BMC, his successor, current municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani, a senior IAS officer, took over as the administrator in March 2024.
Elections to 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra, including the BMC, were held on January 15 and the results were announced the next day.
On Wednesday afternoon, when the new 227-member BMC House came into existence and BJP corporator Ritu Tawde was elected as Mumbai’s 78th Mayor, the administrator’s rule automatically ended after a gap of three years, 11 months and five days – the longest in its history.
According to BMC officials, this was the second time in the history of BMC that a state-appointed administrator governed the country’s richest municipal corporation for such a long period.
Earlier administrator rule in the BMC was in mid-1980s, when elections were deferred due to political reasons.
As per the BMC portal, the state government first appointed an administrator on April 1, 1984, when civic elections were deferred. However, the administrator’s rule lasted for just over a year – until May 10, 1985.
