New Delhi, Feb. 22 -- Mumbai finally got itself a new mayor, Ritu Tawde from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), after a long hiatus. The city's municipal corporation is the country's richest local body and expectations from the incoming mayor were quite high.

It was therefore surprising when, in her maiden statement, she mentioned clearing encroachments by Bangladeshi migrants as her priority. There was nothing about the poor state of the city's roads, pollution from unregulated construction, endangered public transport systems, lack of pedestrian walkways, an inefficient garbage collection and treatment system or on how to avoid large flyover sections landing on unsuspecting citizens.

There are two ways to explain this: either she expec...