The Mumbai Mayoral election will take place on February 11 and the nomination process is to begin on February 6. This is hot topic of discussion in administrative circle but attention is also turning to the BMC Commissioner post, with Bhushan Gagrani, the incumbent, set to retire in March. Senior IAS officers including Vikas Shankar Kharage, Ashwini Bhide, Milind Mhaiskar, Sanjeev Jaiswal and Dr Sanjay Mukherjee are emerging as key contenders for the powerful civic role. The leading contenders are seasoned IAS officers with deep administrative and urban governance experience. The next head of the country’s richest Municipal Corporation  will be, no doubt, a senior IAS officer. Gagrani is a 1990-batch IAS officer who served as BMC Municipal Commissioner since March 2024. With his possible superannuation, discussions are intensifying over, who will succeed him as the next Municipal Commissioner.