Mumbai North West: Ravindra Waikar wins by just 48 votes

Both candidates, who are under the Enforcement Directorate’s scanner, vied for the votes of the constituency’s 1.7 million electors

The constituency saw a close fight between candidates from the two Shiv Sena factions, with the pendulum swinging both ways till the very end.

Ravindra Waikar Candidate for Lok Sabha Mumbai North-West constituency celebrate after winning at Nesco on Tuesday. (Satish Bate/ HT PHOTO)

Ravindra Waikar from the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena garnered 4,52,644 votes, 48 more than the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Amol Kirtikar at 4,52,596. While Kirtikar’s loyalty to the Thackerays and his family’s history in the constituency – his father Gajanan Kirtikar is a two-time MP – worked in his favour, Waikar had under his belt his experience as a BMC corporator and chairman of the standing committee. The close fight kept everyone on their toes throughout the counting day, with the margin hovering under the 10,000 mark for the most part.

Voter turnout in the constituency was 54.84%, translating to 10,35,493 votes. The constituency has six assembly seats: Andheri East, Andheri West, Versova, Goregaon, Jogeshwari, and Dindoshi. Of them, Jogeshwari had the highest voter turnout at 57.11%, followed by Andheri East at 55.73%. The lowest voter turnout was from Versova, at 53.15%. The overall turnout was similar to the constituency’s performance in 2019, at 54.71%.

Both candidates, who are under the Enforcement Directorate’s scanner, vied for the votes of the constituency’s 1.7 million electors. Marathi voters dominate, followed by Muslims and North Indians, all of whom dwarf the Gujarati population.

The fight for this seat has historically been between the Congress and the undivided Shiv Sena. The Congress has been more successful, winning the seat seven times, out of which the late actor-turned-politician Sunil Dutt clinched it five times. The Congress’s streak was intermittently broken, first by noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani from the Janata Party in 1977 and then the Shiv Sena’s Madhukar Sarpotdar in 1996. The Congress had the seat from 1999 to 2014, before Shiv Sena’s Gajanan Kirtikar won the last two elections.