Pune's next mayor: Who is Manjusha Nagpure, woman techie with deep RSS roots?

• BJP names Manjusha Nagpure as Pune mayor candidate, Parshuram Wadekar as deputy
• Nagpure elected unopposed in PMC polls; formal mayoral vote set for February 9
• Nagpure vows to tackle traffic, flooding, and enhance civic amenities in Pune

Did our AI summary help?

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has named 46-year-old Manjusha Nagpure as its candidate for the post of mayor of Pune and Parshuram Wadekar as the deputy mayor. A Business Management postgraduate with strong Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) roots, Nagpure was chosen over other senior contenders, including four-time corporator Varsha Tapkir and three-time corporator Mansi Deshpande.

Nagpure, a third-time corporator, was elected unopposed in the recent Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) elections.

The formal mayoral election is scheduled for February 9, though it is largely a formality since the BJP holds 119 seats in the 165-seat Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress, which have fielded candidates, hold 27 and 15 seats, respectively.

Unopposed win and BJP’s stronghold in PMC

In the PMC elections held on January 15, Nagpure was elected unopposed from the Suncity–Manikbaug ward on Sinhagad Road.

Interestingly, Nagpure represents a ward that falls under the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency, which is currently represented by NCP (SP) working president Supriya Sule. The BJP has been making sustained efforts to make inroads into the Baramati region.

All about Manjusha Nagpure

Born in 1979, Manjusha Nagpure is among the most educated corporators in the PMC. She completed her graduation from Savitribai Phule Pune University in 1999 and later earned a Master’s degree in Business Administration from ICFAI University in 2021.

Nagpure initially worked with an IT firm but left her job to enter politics, encouraged by her family. She was first elected as a corporator in 2012 from the Anandnagar area on Sinhagad Road and has since been elected to the PMC three times.

Her husband, Deepak Nagpure, is a BJP office-bearer and a well-known right-wing leader, which helped shape her early political journey. The couple runs a business involving leased commercial properties, and Nagpure has declared assets worth Rs 3.22 crore. She is also the mother of two children.

During her campaign, Nagpure promised to prioritise Pune’s traffic issues by improving signals, widening roads and strengthening the PMPML bus service. Representing a flood-prone area along Sinhagad Road, she has proposed building a retaining wall along the Mutha River and introducing a flood alert system.

She has also pledged to push river improvement and beautification projects, improve civic hospitals, promote digital education in municipal schools and launch a “Swachh Ward, Beautiful Ward” initiative to tackle waste dumping across the city.