E-Paper
Shiv Sena snatches 2 minority seats from Congress, AIMIM
In Byculla, the Sena’s Yamini Yadav defeated sitting AIMIM MLA Waris Pathan and Congress’s Madhukar Chavan. Jadhav got 51,180 votes, followed by Pathan (31,157) and Chavan (24,139).
The Shiv Sena snatched two seats — Byculla and Chandivali — with a significant number of minority voters from the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) and the Congress, respectively, in the Assembly elections.
In Byculla, the Sena’s Yamini Yadav defeated sitting AIMIM MLA Waris Pathan and Congress’s Madhukar Chavan. Jadhav got 51,180 votes, followed by Pathan (31,157) and Chavan (24,139).
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi had made an emotional appeal to the electorate in the run-up to the polls, apologising for the lacklustre performance of Pathan, and promised to set things right if given a second chance.
The civic body’s standing committee chairman and Sena leader Yashwant Jadhav, who had been preparing to field his wife Yamini from the seat for the past year, had convinced the Sena leadership to not leave the constituency for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) though the Sena had not contested from there in the 2014 elections, and the BJP had lost there.
He had wooed local groups, especially from the Muslim community, and used his position as the standing committee chairman to undertake large-scale development work in the constituency.
He had also ensured the defection of former Congress corporator Manoj Jamsudkar, whose wife, Sonam, is currently a corporator. “Both me and my husband have worked very hard and hence, we have this win,” said Yamini.
She had been leading from the first round. In the initial round, Congress’s Chavan was running second, but later, as the counting started for Muslim-dominated areas like Madanpura and Agripada, Pathan started catching up. However, he was not able to ensure his win.
In Chandivali constituency, former Congress minister Arif Naseem Khan was one of the strongest candidates as he had been the legislator thrice — twice from Chandivali and once from Kurla.
However, he lost by a mere 409 votes to Sena candidate Dilip Lande, who had shot to limelight in 2018 when he led a group of six Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leaders to defect to the Sena. His defection was seen as a victory for Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray over his cousin.
Lande is popular among the minority community and enjoys considerable goodwill among both Sena and MNS workers. While Lande got 85,879 votes, Khan polled 85,470 votes.
As the counting began, Lande had a lead of more than 4,000 votes over Khan. In the 20th round, Khan managed to catch up and even took a lead by 358 votes and continued till 1,778 votes. After that, it was Lande all the way, who took the lead with 380 votes, and eventually won.
In the 2014 Assembly elections, Khan had won by 29,469 votes against Sena’s Santosh Singh, while BJP candidate Sitaram Tiwari had been disqualified.
