BJP MLA and ex-Pune Mayor Mukta Tilak passes away at 57

A scion of Lokmanya Tilak’s family, Ms. Tilak had served as the first BJP Mayor of the Pune Municipal Corporation

Mukta Tilak, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA and former Mayor of Pune, passed away on Thursday, aged 57.

Ms. Tilak, a first-time legislator from Kasba Peth Assembly constituency in Pune and a scion of Bal Gangadhar ‘Lokmanya’ Tilak’s family, had been battling cancer for the past several months.

Sources said that her mortal remains will be kept at the Tilak family house in Kesari Wada for people to pay their last respects and the final rites will be performed at the Vaikuntha crematorium in the city on Friday.

After the February 2017 civic polls, Ms. Tilak achieved the distinction of being the first BJP Mayor of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) following the saffron party’s landslide sweep in the high-stakes PMC poll. The BJP won nearly 100 of the 162 seats in the civic body.

Prior to being elected as Mayor, Ms. Tilak had stated that her objective was to oversee Pune’s transformation into a Smart City, even if it involved taking some tough decisions.

Ms. Tilak, wife of Lokmanya Tilak’s great-grandson Shailesh Tilak, had an MBA degree with a specialisation in marketing.

She had won the civic polls four times in succession on a BJP ticket from the Narayan Peth-Sadashiv Peth area of Old Pune.