Mumbai: AIMIM's Hindu Candidate Vijay Ubale Appointed Party's Group Leader At BMC After Landmark Win In Muslim-Dominated Area

Mumbai: Vijay Ubale, who won last week’s election to the BMC as a candidate of the AIMIM, was on Wednesday picked as the party’s group leader in the civic body. A state leader of the party made the announcement through a social media post. Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM has won eight seats in the January 15 polls. The party won from wards 134, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 143 and 145.

Ubale, a Hindu candidate, won from ward number 140 with a margin of 4,945 votes. The AIMIM swept the MEast ward’s eight seats, the constituency traditionally dominated by the Samajwadi Party, and locally by Shiv Sena and NCP corporators. The ward covers Govandi, Deonar, Shivaji Nagar and Mankhurd areas. Dominated by Muslims and immigrant population, it has the lowest Human Development Index in Mumbai, with 77% people living in informal housing. From sanitation to health care, education to roads, encroachments to slum development, the ward ranks at the bottom.

Many say the eight-seat victory is not purely AIMIM’s success, but results from vote division due to anti-incumbency against SP and anti-BJP sentiment, which directly benefited AIMIM. Still, with citizens electing new faces, will AIMIM corporators seize the opportunity to uplift the area? The corporators include four women and four men, notably a Hindu corporator elected from a Muslim-dominated ward, reflecting strong public support. M-East houses the infamous Deonar dumping ground.

For years, the BMC has failed to start the waste-to-energy plant there. Praja Foundation’s 2025 report notes M-East recorded the lowest per capita civic expenditure and a staggering 91.08% decline in slum improvement budget. “The Govandi–Mankhurd constituency has emerged as a major centre of revolutionary politics. The people wanted real change and an upgrade in the living conditions of the area, especially because for the last 20 years, there has been no effective local representation in many municipal wards.

With a significant Muslim– Dalit population in every ward, voting patterns clearly reflected community aspirations for dignity, development, and justice,” said Faiyaz Alam, president of Govandi Welfare Forum. Kalpana Mate, a resident of Mankhurd said, “Our entire family relocated to Mankhurd 15-20 years ago.

To date, we do not have voter IDs as some of our documents consist of village addresses. Every time slum rehab officers visit for inspection, we request them to guide us to change our address, make new IDs, ration cards. The local government offices, banks are also very negligent because we are illiterate and poor. The last corporators had promised to generate new government documents, but nothing happened.” “Seeing the safety, security issues, drug menace and local violence, I feel my children could shift back to the village,” Mate added.

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