Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha seats, from which in Mumbai South Lok Sabha constituency is one of the seat. Currently the seat is held by Shiv Sena’s Arvind Sawant who defeated Congress’s Milind Deora in 2014 general elections. But originally the seat for quite a long was held by the Milind Deora’s father Murli Deora. Murli Deora held the seat from 1984 to 1991. Milind Deora has won two elections from South Mumbai 2004 and 2009.
Maharashtra’s 48 constituencies will vote to elect members to the Lok Sabha in four phases on April 11, 18, 23 and 29. Lok Sabha Elections are just around the corner and with polls nearing people want to know about their constituencies. So to make simple for the voters the Free Press Journal has made a report card of constituency.
Here’s all you need to know about Mumbai South Lok Sabha constituency:
Mumbai South:
Member of Parliament: Arvind Sawant (Shiv Sena)
Votes won in 2014: 3,74,609
Winning margin: 1,28,564
Questions asked in Parliament: 476
Private Members’ Bills introduced: 2
MPLAD Spending: Rs 13 Cr
Net Assets: 1.31 crore
Pending Court Cases:
IPC 142 Being member of unlawful assembly, IPC 143 Punishment, IPC 147 Punishment for rioting, IPC 149 Every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object, IPC 341 Punishment for wrongful restraint, IPC 504 Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace, IPC 506 Punishment for criminal intimidation, IPC 353 tAssault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty, IPC 342 Punishment for wrongful confinement
Main Rival: Milind Deora (Congress)
Assemblies:
Worli (MLA Sunil Shinde), Sewri (MLA Ajay Choudhari), Byculla (MLA Waris Pathan), Malabar Hill (MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha), Mumbadevi (MLA Amin Patel), Colaba (MLA Raj K. Purohit)
Total voters:
Male: 828643
Female: 656698
Other: 15
Total: 1485356
Issues in Constituency: Mumbai Metro 3 works, roads, traffic, parking
Things to know about the candidates:
Arvind Ganpat Sawant is a member of the 16th Lok Sabha of India and represents the Mumbai South constituency. Arvind, a keen orator, started his political carrier as a social worker and trade union leader winning the Maharashtra legislative council seat for the first time in 1996, then again in 2004. He has worked in various positions for the Shiv Sena at the grassroots in Maharashtra. He is credited with working for employees of MTNL in Maharashtra helping to fulfil wage agreements.
Milind Deora, who was recently appointed as President of Mumbai Congress was Member of the 15th Lok Sabha. Deora is the Former Minister of State with the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications and the Former Minister of State with the Ministry of Shipping within the Government of India. He became an MP at the age of 27 after winning the 2004 Lok Sabha polls beating Congress candidate Jaywantiben Mehta with a sizable 10,000 votes from Mumbai South. He was re-elected in 2009 with an even bigger margin of over 1.12 lakh votes.
What the people think about their sitting Member of Parliament:
Gita Bhatia, activist, Malabar Hill resident
As compared to his predecessor he is very approachable and is friendly among masses. Arvind Sawant is very kind and hard working guy. He has worked hard for the constituency.
Rating for MP: 7/10
Govind Pandit, consultant for self redevelopment of existing buildings, Girgaon Resident
Whatever work MP has done is according to his party’s (Shiv Sena) line of thinking.
For proper governance, job of a elected politician, is to set up systems with necessary checks-balances, so that citizens do not have to approach any elected person for using his discritionary authority.
In all the democracies where governance is system driven by making discretionary powers of inividual minimum are all developed economies. And to such countries inteligent persons from underdeveloped countires migrate.
With this background, Arvind Sawant hasn’t made efforts to change anything in governance and, so, this is his failure.
Rating for MP: 3/10
Rina Kamath, activist, Cuffe Parade Resident
Our South Mumbai MP is Arvind Sawant of the Shiv Sena who rode on the BJP-alliance band wagon to win in the last elections. He is a total non-performer. The only time he showed up was during the recent CST bridge collapse (possibly for damage control as Milind Deora was giving a series of sound bites) but he had no answers for the TV interviewers.
