HT Correspondent
Mumbai: The by-election for Andheri East assembly constituency gains greater significant in the ongoing political fight in the Shiv Sena, following chief minister Eknath Shinde’s rebellion in June.
The election, slated for November 3, takes place at a crucial juncture as Uddhav Thackeray faces an uphill task of reviving the party following the vertical split in the ranks and file. The CM’s ally, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made a serious bid to snatch power from the hands of Sena, both in this upcoming bypoll as well as in the impending Mumbai civic body elections.
Shiv Sena won the constituency for two consecutive terms in 2014 and 2019. Prior to that, the Congress had the seat. In 2019, Sena’s Ramesh Latke won after securing 62,773 votes while Murji Patel, then an independent candidate, was his closest rival with 45,808 votes. Congress’s Amin Kutty was third, securing 27,951 votes. Latke died in May.
For the upcoming bypoll, Sena has fielded Latke’s widow, Rutuja, while the BJP has unofficially announced Patel’s candidature. The Congress came out in support of Shiv Sena, its Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) ally, in the by-election, making this poll a straight fight between the MVA and BJP-Shinde faction alliance.
The arithmetic of the election is in favour of Shiv Sena, but Saturday’s developments have compounded the challenges before Thackeray. With the stakes were already high, the bypoll will be litmus test for Thackeray, which will now have to contest without its three-decade-old bow-and-arrow symbol as well as its party name.
The Andheri East constituency has significant portion of Marathi-speaking voters followed with voters from North Indian, Gujarati and Christian communities.