BJP’s new Mumbai chief wants BJP-Sena to win all 36 Assembly seats in city

Mangal Prabhat Lodha also indicated that the party’s poll campaign in Mumbai may also feature issues of nationalism and identity politics

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) newly appointed city chief, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, a five-term legislator from Malabar Hill and a developer, has said the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance will win all 36 Assembly seats in Mumbai in the upcoming polls. Lodha took over the city unit on Friday from incumbent chief and state education minister Ashish Shelar.

Newly appointed Mumbai BJP president Mangal Prabhat Lodha at the BJP office in Dadar, Mumbai, on Friday.(SATISH BATE/ HT PHOTO)

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who presided over the function, reiterated Lodha’s message, saying the party’s rank and file must ensure that all 36 city seats vote for the saffron alliance.

“In the 2014 polls, the alliance broke up at the last minute but we still won that match by winning 15 seats (while the Sena won 14 seats in Mumbai),” said Lodha, in his address to party workers at the BJP’s city office in Dadar. “Now the two finalists (BJP-Sena) are in the same team. So we should be able to score 36-0. But to win every seat in the city will mean all of us have to work very hard in the 75 days that we have ahead of elections,” he said.

Lodha also indicated that the party’s poll campaign in Mumbai may also feature issues of nationalism and identity politics. “Mumbai now has leadership that will not compromise the city’s security for the sake of appeasing some vote banks. Those who are on the voting list in Azamgarh and Bangladesh cannot also vote in Mumbai. If you want to stay here, be a Bharatiya, be a Mumbaikar,’’ he said. He added he had been entrusted with the job of looking at voter registrations and voter lists.

Fadnavis said his government had brought transformative change in the city unlike the earlier government, which he said saw Mumbai only as a cash cow. “In 2014 as well as 2019, Mumbai backed Modiji completely more than anywhere else in the country. We have to deliver on that trust reposed on us. Our government has taken decisions from Mumbai Metro to Trans Harbour link to development of BDD chawls. I can list out at least 30 decisions that our government has taken, which were only on paper for 15 years,’’ he said.

“We have begun transformation of the city,” he added. “It’s a long journey and entire transformation can take another 10 years. This October we have to go to people and seek a renewal from them for the job done. In a democracy unless people validate us it’s not enough.’’