Congress routed in Mumbai

Much like rest of the country, Narendra Modi’s wave washed over Mumbai with the BJP-Shiv Sena combine sweeping all six Lok Sabha constituencies almost effortlessly.

This was in sharp contrast to 2009 when the Congress won five seats and its ally, the NCP, had held Mumbai North-East.

On Friday, BJP’s Poonam Mahajan defeated two-time Member of Parliament Priya Dutt in Mumbai North Central by a margin of 1.87 lakh votes. In upmarket Mumbai South, two-time MP Milind Deora was trounced by a relatively less visible Shiv Sena candidate Arvind Sawant by a margin of 1.5 lakh votes.

Ex-banker and Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate Meera Sanyal failed to make much of an impression and garnered less than 40,000 votes. “This time, local issues were overlooked while voting for candidates. BJP’s win is impressive,” Deora conceded. 

With the humungous slum population in Mumbai North-East, activist turned-political aspirant Medha Patkar of the Aam Aadmi Party was expected to give her rivals a run for their money. However, BJP’s Kirit Somaiya ended up with almost seven times more votes than Patkar.

None of the AAP candidates managed to debut in Mumbai. As was the case with Patkar, Mayank Gandhi too fared poorly in his Mumbai Northwest constituency, trailing behind Shiv Sena’s Gajanan Kirtikar, Congress’ Gurudas Kamat and celebrated director-actor Mahesh Manjrekar. Well known TV actor Rakhi Sawant, who contested on a Rashtriya Aam Party ticket did not garner much vote share.

Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena did not quite take the city by storm which was an encore of 2009 when it did not win a single seat. The thumping victory meant that party workers went on a celebration overdrive. While sweets were distributed at select locations, young men triumphantly rode on the streets of Mumbai with the BJP flag.

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