Mumbai: The ensuing Maharashtra assembly elections are the first direct battle between the Mahayuti and MVA after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The campaigns have reached at last stages and PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have also conducted election rallies in Mumbai. Being the capital city, the battle to lead in Mumbai is what any political party wants.
Mumbai has 36 assembly constituencies, including Mumbai city and suburbs. Some of the key constituencies in the western suburbs include Dahisar, Borivali, Kandivali, Bandra, Andheri and Jogeshwari, and key constituencies in the eastern suburbs are Mulund, Bhandup, Ghatkopar and Kurla.
The battle in Mumbai’s Borivali
Borivali (152) assembly constituency is part of the Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency along with five others, namely Dahisar, Magathane Kandivali East, Charkop and Malad West.
Since 1980, the constituency has been single-handedly led by the BJP. Mumbai North region itself is known to be a stronghold of the saffron party. The Borivali assembly seat is represented by veteran BJP leaders like Ram Naik, Hemendra Mehta, Gopal Shetty, Vinod Tawde, and from 2019 Sunil Tawde. In the 2024 assembly polls, the BJP has fielded the party’s Mumbai General Secretary Sanjay Upadhyay. For the Lok Sabha 2024, the sitting MLA Gopal Shetty was replaced by Union Minister Piyush Goyal, who won the seat in a one-sided fight.
However, for the assembly elections, former MLA and MP from Borivali, Gopal Shetty was hoping to get a ticket, which the party denied. This angered Shetty and he filed a nomination form from the seat as an independent candidate. Shetty was among those top BJP leaders in the state who chose to fight independently after the party denied them ticket. However, to avoid disciplinary action from the party, Shetty withdrew his nomination and is now campaigning to elect Sanjay Upadhyay.
Upadhyay is competing with Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Sanjay Bhosale and MNS’ Kunal Mainkar.
Past Poll Statistics
Borivali has been the bastion of the BJP since 1978, much before the Modi wave in 2014. It is considered a safe seat for the BJP. In 2014, former state minister Vinod Tawde won the seat against undivided Shiv Sena’s Uttamprakash Agarwal with a margin of 95,021 votes. In 2019, BJP’s Sunil Rane won the seat defeating Congress’ Kumar Khilare with a margin of 79,267 votes. While, MNS’s Nayan Kadam contested the seat in 2009 and 2014 and received a fair vote share.
Constituency’s Performance In 2024 Lok Sabha Polls
Borivali assembly constituency is part of the Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency along with five others, namely Dahisar, Magathane Kandivali East, Charkop and Malad West. Out of this, except Magathane (Shiv Sena) and Malad West (Congress), all four assembly seats are led by BJP.
The seat is the bastion of the BJP and in the 2024 Lok Sabha, Union Minister Piyush Goyal was elected as the MP, defeating Bhushan Patil from Congress. Piyush Goyal got a total of 6,80,146 votes, of which the Borivali constituency gave him 1,47,100 votes. Bhushan Patil got 46,325 votes from Borivali.
About Borivali seat
Borivali assembly seat is not a reserved seat and allotted for General Category candidates. During the 2019 assembly elections, the total registered voters in the Borivali constituency were 3,01,446, of which male voters were 1,54,469 and female voters were 1,46,977. The voter turnout for this constituency for the last assembly election was 55.06 percent.
Current situation in Maharashtra Assembly
Currently, the ruling disposition, Mahayuti in Maharashtra has 202 MLAs with it. Out of these, BJP has 102 seats, NCP (Ajit Pawar) has 40, Shiv Sena (Shinde) has 38 and other parties have 24.
MVA has 69 seats in its kitty. Out of these, Congress has 37, Shiv Sena (UBT) has 16, NCP (Sharad Pawar) has 12 and other parties have six seats. Fifteen seats are vacant.