India, Nov. 6 -- Zohran Mamdani's election as the mayor of New York is discussed widely because the office has actual powers to shape policies and politics in the world's financial capital. In the Indian context, the 74th Amendment to the Constitution provided for decentralisation of powers to urban local bodies (ULBs) as early as 1992. This should have empowered municipalities and municipal corporations, with the chairperson (in a municipality) and the mayor (in a city) having substantive executive powers. That transfer of power did not happen: The mayor remains mostly a ceremonial figure, an ineffectual office with real authority resting with the bureaucracy. Kerala may be the exception, having witnessed a political movement towards dec...