Mumbai casts vote against nepotism in civic polls

While political parties had done their best to ensure that relatives of leaders received tickets for the civic polls, results have shown that Mumbaiites voted against nepotism.

While political parties had done their best to ensure that relatives of leaders received tickets for the civic polls, results have shown that Mumbaiites voted against nepotism.

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The Congress and the NCP were leading in the race of handing out tickets to relatives of legislators, senior leaders and councillors, arguing that ‘elective merit’ had forced them to consider these candidates. Results have shown that electorate played the role of a great leveler.

At least three Congress legislators’ sons received a drubbing in the civic polls despite the clout exercised by their fathers. For instance, Prathamesh Kolambkar, son of legislator Kalidas Kolambkar, Samir Chavan, son of legislator Madhu Chavan and Nitesh Singh, son of legislator Rajhans Singh lost the elections. Sameer Desai, nephew of party MP Gurudas Kamat, suffered defeat, as did Susiiben Shah, daughter of former minister BA Desai, who was given a ticket in Malabar Hill.

Another defeat was that of Samadhan Sarvankar, son of former Sena legislator Sada Sarvankar, who had shifted to the Congress in 2009. Samadhan lost out to Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) even though he contested from his father’s erstwhile constituency.

“In hindsight, we should not have ignored ground-level party cadre and leadership in individual wards to favour legislators,’’ said a senior Congress party functionary.

The NCP, too, chose to focus on its legislators’ constituencies like Kurla, Worli, Anushakti Nagar. It also gave a free hand to its legislators to nominate candidates. However, three of its high profile candidates — relatives of legislators suffered defeat. This included Nawab Malik’s brother Kaptan Malik, legislator Milind Kamble’s wife and legislator Vidya Chavan’s husband.