MUMBAI: The BJP emerged as the Big Brother in Mumbai, winning 15 out of the 17 seats it contested. The party got one seat less than its 2019 victory tally of 16 seats. The Shiv Sena (UBT), which faced a wipeout in most of the state, managed to win 10 seats out of the 22 it contested in the city.
The party won 20 seats in Maharashtra, so half of their wins came from Mumbai. Sena’s (UBT) lone Muslim candidate, Haroon Khan, won from Versova, defeating BJP’s sitting MLA Bharti Lavekar. The Shiv Sena, led by CM Eknath Shinde, won six seats. It fought 15 seats. The Congress, which contested on 10 seats, only managed to win three, down from four sitting MLAs in 2019. The NCP (SP) fought two seats in the city and lost both, while the Ajit Pawar-NCP contested two seats and won one – Sana Malik from Anushakti Nagar. The MNS failed to bag any seat in the city; in fact, its chief Raj Thackeray’s son, Amit, lost from Mahim seat.
BJP’s Sanjay Upadhaya bagged the Borivli seat with 1,00,057 votes, the highest winning margin in the city, defeating Sena (UBT)’s Sanjay Bhosale. BJP’s Mihir Kotecha won Mulund seat by over a 90,000 vote margin.
This was nearly 50% more margin than in the Lok Sabha elections from Mulund constituency in May, when he had a 61,000 lead. In Malabar Hill, BJP’s Mangal Prabhat Lodha won his 7th election, the only candidate to hold that record in this constituency. He swept the elections with 1,01,197 votes and, with that, garnered the highest vote share of 73.4% among all constituencies of Mumbai.
Among other high-profile seats, BJP’s Ashish Shelar (Bandra West), Ameet Satam (Andheri West), and Rahul Narwekar (Colaba) got big wins. The Shinde-led Sena lost key seats to Sena (UBT) like Worli, where Aaditya Thackeray won, and Mahim, where Mahesh Sawant defeated sitting MLA Sada Sarvankar. Sena (UBT)’s Varun Sardesai won from Bandra East defeating NCP’s Zeeshan Siddique. Samajwadi Party’s Abu Azmi won Mankhurd-Shivaji Nagar seat defeating NCP’s Nawab Malik. Some of the Sena’s candidates who joined from BJP just before the polls, like Shaina NC (Mumbadevi), lost, while Murji Patel (Andheri East) won.
Bhandup West witnessed the highest voting percentage at nearly 62.9%, and it was a close contest between Ramesh Korgaonkar of Sena UBT and Ashok Patil of Shiv Sena. While the former was leading during the first 11 rounds, giving an impression that he might easily get re-elected, the tables turned from the 12th round, as Patil surpassed him for the next 9 rounds and won by 6,764 votes.
Ghatkopar West seat saw a close fight between three-time BJP MLA Ram Kadam and Sena (UBT)’s Sanjay Bhalerao. Kadam won the seat with a margin of 12,971 votes, though his winning margin dropped from the 2019 elections when it was over 28,000. MNS candidate Ganesh Chukkal could have played a spoilsport in this constituency as he bagged 25,862 votes.
The richest candidate in the fray, BJP’s Parag Shah, won the second consecutive term with 34,999 votes in Ghatkopar (East). He polled 85,388 votes against his closest rival Rakhi Jadhav of NCP (SP), who polled 50,389 votes. In Kurla, Mangesh Kudalkar of Shiv Sena won his third consecutive term by overcoming a tough challenge by Pravina Morajkar of Sena (UBT). He won by a margin of 4,187 votes.