Like its neighbouring Maval, the Kalyan Parliamentary constituency was also created in 2008 as a part of the implementation of the Presidential notification based on the recommendations of the Delimitation Commission of India constituted in 2002. The voters in the constituency, that falls in Thane district, voted for the first time in 2009 when they sent undivided Shiv Sena leader Anand Paranjape as their first representative to the Lower House.
Five years later, though the voters’ commitment towards electing Shiv Sena candidate remained the same, only this time the candidate differed. The then sitting MP Paranjape, who defected to undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), had to face defeat at the hands of Sena nominee Dr Shrikant Shinde, son of Thane stalwart and current Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. The Kalyan voters again imposed their faith in Sena in 2019 when Shrikant Shinde was re-elected to the Lok Sabha defeating Babaji Balaram Patil of NCP.
Kalyan Seat decision after series of closed-door discussions
However, this time it’s a different scene all together. If sources are to be believed, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was eyeing the seat making it a prestigious one. However, after lot of closed-door meetings and discussions, BJP leader and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced that Shiv Sena will fight Kalyan LS seat and announced Shrikant Shinde as the candidate.
Split into two factions, Shiv Sena will be fighting the elections for the first time and it would be interesting to see which faction gets successful in making inroads into voters’ hearts. “It will be exciting to see which faction gets people’s support. After all the claims and counter claims by the party leaders for the past two-and-half years when the party got split, this will be the ultimate test,” political observers say.
This election will witness a direct fight between sitting MP Shrikant Shinde and Vaishali Darekar of Shiv Sena (UBT). While Shinde has expressed confidence of creating a hat-trick and returning to the Lok Sabha with a huge margin, his opponent is also confident of her victory stating that the people know which is ‘real Sena’ and will stand besides Uddhav Thackeray.
Kalyan Lok Sabha constituency comprises of six legislative assembly segments – Ambernath, Ulhasnagar, Kalyan East, Dombivali, Kalyan Rural and Mumbra-Kalwa. While BJP has three legislators, NCP, Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has one legislator each. The constituency will go for polls in the fifth phase on May 20 and the results will be announced on June 4.
