Maharashtra assembly elections 2024: Lok Sabha data rings alarm bells for some heavyweight MLAs

Aaditya Thackeray, Worli MLA; Sandeep Deshpande, MNS candidate for Worli Assembly seat; Milind Deora, Shiv Sena MP

Many stalwarts who won in 2019 by significant margins heard alarm bells in the Lok Sabha election. Aaditya Thackeray, Ashish Shelar, Ameet Satam, Yamini Jadhav, Parag Shah, Sunil Prabhu, Ramesh Korgaonkar and Aslam Shaikh have to work hard to retain their constituencies this time as their opponents received as many or equal votes in their respective Assembly segments during the Lok Sabha election earlier this year.

Every Lok Sabha constituency comprises six Assembly segments and in general, the candidates from Maha Vikas Aghadi and Mahayuti received more votes where their party members were elected in the 2019 Assembly election. But as the political game changed due to the formation of alliances so did the dynamics of many seats, which was reflected in the Lok Sabha election.

When Thackeray contested from Worli for the first time in 2019, he wasn't up against a strong competitor. Then-NCP leader Sachin Ahir entered the Shiv Sena before the poll, paving the way for Thackeray. No surprise that the latter won by a huge margin of 70,000 votes. Come 2024, and there are two other candidates - Shiv Sena's Rajya Sabha MP Milind Deora and MNS's Sandeep Deshpande. In addition, the votes garnered by Anil Desai, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP from South Central, in 2024 is also a concern. Though Desai managed to win, he received 64,844 from the Worli Assembly segment as opposed to 58,129 for the Mahayuti candidate Rahul Shewale. The gap between the two was narrow, sounding an alarm bell.

Similarly, Ashish Shelar won the Bandra West Assembly seat with 74,816 votes in 2019 while his rival received 48,309 votes. The vote share from the constituency for Ujjwal Nikam in the Lok Sabha poll was nearly the same with 72,953 votes, the margin of his opponent's victory was very slim with the MVA receiving 69,347 votes. Congress veteran Asif Zakaria may give a tough fight with the support of Sena (UBT).

At the north end, where BJP MP Piyush Goyal won with the highest margin of 3.5 lakh votes, the BJP candidate received 87,440 votes from Malad West where Aslam Shaikh from Congress won in 2019 with 79,494 votes. This time, Bhushan Patil from Congress received 88,275 votes and may benefit from the Sena (UBT)'s support but it is still less than the votes received by Mahayuti, which is alarming for the Congress MLA. Vinod Shelar from the BJP is contesting the seat. In addition, MNS hasn't fielded a candidate, which may benefit the BJP.

Yamini Jadhav, a Shinde-Sena MLA from the Byculla seat, received a major setback from her own constituency in this Lok Sabha election. She received 51,180 votes in 2019 when there were strong opponents like Waris Pathan of the AIMIM and Anna Chavan from Congress who garnered 31,157 and 24,139 votes respectively. This general election, Jadhav who lost the election could fetch only 40,817 votes from her home turf. Her opponent Arvind Sawant received 86,883 votes from Byculla. This time Manoj Jamsutkar from Sena (UBT) will get support from Congress voters.

Even BJP MLA Ameet Satam's Assembly seat, Andheri West, seems hard to hold onto if one goes by the Lok Sabha contest where Ravindra Waikar from the Mahayuti (70,743) and Amol Kirtikar from MVA (70,522) received almost the same votes in the constituency. Similarly, Waikar received just 59,397 votes against Kirtikar's 80,4876 in Versova where the BJP repeated sitting MLA Bharati Lavekar for the Assembly election.

Shinde Sena MLAs Mangesh Kudalkar from Kurla and Dilip Lande from Chandivli are also in the danger zone with their constituencies seeing more votes going to North Central MP Varsha Gaikwad. A few Sena (UBT) MLAs such as Sunil Prabhu from Dindoshi and Ramesh Korgaonkar from Bhandup could fetch only a small margin of votes from their constituencies.

74,816
No. of votes won by Ashish Shelar in 2019