Maharashtra assembly elections: Fierce contest in Congress for Dharavi, Versova

In the Mumbai Congress, the two Assembly constituencies have seen fierce competition for party tickets. One of them is Dharavi (SC), which is connected with the party city president Varsha Gaikwad, and the other is Versova, where many Muslim aspirants have applied for nomination.

The Congress will be contesting the Assembly elections in alliance with the Shiv Sena (UBT), Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) and Samajwadi Party. There are 36 seats in the city, of which the Sena (UBT) is expected to demand 18-20, the Congress 12-14 and NCP (SP) and SP 1-2 each. Once the single largest party in the city, the Congress went down drastically since the 2014 elections, but a resurgence in the recent Lok Sabha polls has given it confidence and hope in Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra. Mumbai's scene is unfolding gradually as the elections approach.

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Tussle for plum slum

Dharavi is where Gaikwad has been an MLA since 2004. She vacated the seat after being elected as the Lok Sabha MP in May this year. Her family members, her sister Dr Jyoti and brother Tushar are among 18 party members, who have applied for candidature from there. But it seems the Mumbai North Central MP wants the party to approve of her sister's name because she has been promoting Dr Jyoti at political and social events these days.

Varsha and Dr Jyoti Gaikwad at a place of worship. Pic/X

Dr Jyoti, who became politically active after Varsha's elevation, is the head of department of anatomy, Sion Ayurveda College. Like her sister and many other daughters of political families across party lines, she has been using her maiden name (Dr Jyoti Eknath Gaikwad), instead of her post-marriage name (Dr Jyoti Girigosavi) to find traction in the family bastion. Her late father Eknath Gaikwad was a Dharavi MLA, Lok Sabha MP and City Congress president.

In Dharavi, senior leaders Sandesh Kondvilkar, Mahendra Salve, Brahmanand Shinde, Deepak Kale and Subhash Pakhare are among the other contenders for Dharavi. Salve, a veteran Congress loyalist, always belonged to the anti-Gaikwad camp. He is a member of Dadar's Chaityabhoomi management.

Party insiders said there is a communal undercurrent of Buddhist Dalits versus Hindu Dalits in Dharavi. The Hindu Dalit aspirants want a ticket this time around, arguing that the party had given the Gaikwads, Buddhists, much more in terms of electoral politics, and it was time others, too, got their due in the constituency reserved for the scheduled castes.

Changez Multani, a top contenders for the Versova seat

However, the Gaikwad sisters have been trying to negate the ‘Buddhist-specific' tag by visiting the Hindu temples and other places of worship in a multi-community Dharavi. In Lok Sabha elections, the MVA had a lead in Dharavi that the Congress considered unbeatable in the Assembly elections, too. Little wonder, then, that there are so many aspirants for this segment, which is the safest.

Muslims' claim

There is another Assembly seat that the party is very confident of winning in Mumbai's suburbs. Some 21 applications have been received for Versova, where the MVA led handsomely in the Lok Sabha election despite the segment being held by BJP's Bharati Lavekar since 2014. Of these, many are Muslim, because of the community's large presence (over one lakh).

It has not been represented by Muslims yet. Among the hot contenders here are Changez Multani (ex-corporator), Wasim Javed Khan (former minister Javed Khan's son, who is also active in other Muslim-dominated segments), Mohsin Hyder, Saif Ahad Khan (who is ex-minister Aslam Shaikh's relative) and Farhan Azmi (who is close to Rajya Sabha MP Imran Pratapgarhi).

Among the non-Muslim aspirants are former MLA Baldev Khosa (also his son), Mahesh Malik (all-India secretary who is attached to the party's national treasurer), Bhavna Jain (senior women's wing leader), Suraj Singh Thakur (former city youth Congress president) and Akhilesh Yadav (city youth Congress president).

Shaikh to shift?

Ex-minister Aslam Shaikh may not be among the applicants, but it is understood in the party circles that he has been trying to shift to Versova from Malad West where the Lok Sabha lead for MVA was very slender (935 votes) as against Versova's 21,000 votes. Clearly, Versova appears safer for the long-time MLA, whose strength has been Muslim-dominated areas like Malwani in Malad West.

Apart from anti-incumbency, another reason for Shaikh's insecurity in Malad West is said to be the BJP's prospective candidate Vinod Shelar, the younger brother of city BJP president Ashish Shelar. Vinod is an ex-corporator and the party's election chief for Malad West where the BJP had earlier given candidates who were considered outsiders.