Mumbai: BJP’s defeat in the Mumbai North East Lok Sabha constituency has led to an outpouring of complaints against elected representatives from the area for “sabotaging” the party’s prospects. PM Modi’s roadshow in Ghatkopar too did not help and party candidate Mihir Kotecha lost to UBT Sena’s Sanjay Dina Patil.
Mulund, Ghatkopar East and Ghatkopar West assembly constituencies were seen as strongholds of BJP from where it was expected to get major leads.Except Mulund, where Kotecha is himself MLA, the other two constituencies disappointed, sources said.
In Ghatkopar East, the lead was 33,700 and in Ghatkopar West, Kotecha trailed by 15,772 seats. In Mulund, Kotecha on his own managed a lead of 60,442 as against his own (assembly poll) 2019 lead of 57,348 with the Shiv Sena as an ally.
“In Bhandup, where BJP has no MLA, Sena (UBT)’s Patil barely managed a lead of 3,458 and in Vikhroli too, Patil had a lead of 15,865. Here there were no MLAs to throw tantrums, no ego trips and the party did not fare very badly. But in Ghatkopar East and West we had a poor show,” party sources said. One of the party’s ex-MPs too did not actively participate in the campaign, sources said. “If Kotecha without Sena could better his 2019 assembly lead in Mulund, surely Ghatkopar East and West results could have been better,” party sources said. On Thursday, at a meeting called by BJP Mumbai unit president Ashish Shelar of MLAs and party office-bearers, the issue was raised of MLAs not having done enough.
One MLA campaigning with Kotecha in a Dalit-dominated area arrived in an expensive car, sources said. The same MLA, sources said, gave just a couple of hundred hours to the two-month campaign.
But sources said in Ghatkopar West assembly segment cited consolidation of Muslim-Dalit votes. “This happened across the state. Would you then say all BJP MLAs did not work? In this constituency, BJP wins by dividing Muslim and Dalit votes. This time there was no AIMIM candidate and the VBA candidate was a Muslim and not Dalit,” party functionaries said.
BJP leaders said some members of the Gujarati community that backs BJP were out of the city and those who came to vote left as there were long queues. Kotecha refused to comment on the issue. MLA Ram Kadam from Ghatkopar West said two months of campaigning had led to him losing 15 kgs. MLA Parag Shah from Ghatkopar East said he had participated in over 150 rallies, had given an estimate of a lead of 35,000 which had fallen short by 1,500 votes.