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Mumbai: BJP MLA Bharti Lovekar, who has been elected in Versova assembly constituency for the last two consecutive years, will have to work hard to win this election this year. Lovekar’s fate rests in the hands of the Muslim electorate in the constituency, which has a majority of 21,090 votes over Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) candidate Amol Kirtikar in the last Lok Sabha elections. Uddhav Thackeray has tried to get this seat in his pocket by fielding Harun Khan.
This constituency came into existence after the constituency reorganization in 2008. In 2009, this seat was held by Congress. However, in the Modi wave in 2014, Lovekar was elected with a good margin. Shivsangram party of late MLA Vinayak Mete, originally from Lovekar. However, from 2014, he contested elections on BJP ticket and won. In the 2019 elections, the official application of Rajul Patel of the united Shiv Sena was rejected and she stood as an independent, it fell on Lovekar’s path.
Lovekar will have to work hard to reduce the huge deficit of the Grand Alliance in the Lok Sabha elections. The division of votes between MIM’s Raees Lashkariya, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s Sandesh Desai and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) rebel Raju Pednekar is unlikely to benefit Lovekar. Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) party is not very dominant in this constituency. Therefore, the calculation of his victory depends on how many Muslim votes Lovekar gets. There was doubt till the end whether Lovekar would get the nomination or not. His candidacy was announced at the very last moment.
Harun Khan, who is the head of the sub-division, has got an opportunity to be a candidate as a minority. The calculation of victory depends on how many votes they manage to get from the minority. In this constituency there are one lakh six thousand (38 percent) Muslims, 65 thousand (23 percent) North Indians and below that 57 thousand (20 percent) Marathi, 22 thousand 700 (eight percent) Gujarati-Marwari, 14 thousand 600 (five percent) South Candidates are relying on Indian voters.
Votes in 2019* In 2019, Dr. Bharti Lovekar got 41 thousand 57 votes and Baldev Khosa of Congress got 36 thousand 871 votes. Rajul Patel who stood as an independent got 32 thousand 706 votes while Sandesh Desai of MNS got only 5 thousand 37 votes. Lovekar won by only five thousand 186 votes. Number of voters: Total voters – two lakh 86 thousand 711: Male – one lakh 53 thousand 392, female – one lakh 32 thousand 776.
