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Mumbai: With the assembly elections round the corner, the Bharatiya Janata Party's Ghatkopar unit is in crisis. Former MLA from the constituency Prakash Mehta has started a high profile campaign to project himself as the rightful claimant to the party's ticket. The sitting MLA is big builder Parag Shah who was given the ticket in the 2019 elections in the place of Mehta.
Mehta, who was the minister for housing in the Devendra Fadnavis cabinet, is miffed that he even though he has been a long time member of the BJP and a senior leader, his claim was overlooked by the party leadership in the last polls.
Recently, his supporters organised a large meeting under the banner of Prakash Mehta Mitra Mandal which was attended by several prominent residents of Ghatkopar like Ramesh Morabbia. The idea was to sent a message a message to the BJP leadership that the Mehta camp will not remain silent if his claim was ignored in 2024 also.
There is a lot of discontent among both BJP workers and local citizens over the performance of Shah. "Paragbhai, is a big builder, is not accessible and has not been active in the constituency," a local resident opined.
There are allegations that Mehta also has not done much for the constituency despite being MLA for six consecutive times from 1990 to 2019. The suburb is facing a near collapse of the infrastructure because unchecked redevelopment of old buildings.
Major projects like the east-west connecting bridge at Vidyavihar have not been completed yet. Work on the bridge in front of the BEST depot has been in the limbo since long. Illegal food stalls have sprung up all over the area specially on either side of the railway station, but not worthwhile action has been taken.
Top sources in the BJP said the party may opt for ex-corporator Pravin Chheda as a compromise candidate. He was earlier in the Congress and in 2019 joined the BJP. He has been active on several fronts in the constituency and is acceptable to all sections of Gujaratis, who form a sizable segment of the electorate.
The party is keen that there is no rift in the organisation and hence is likely to handpick Pravin Chheda as a compromise nominee. In the Lok Sabha elections, the party had denied tickets to three of its sitting M.P.s - Gopal Shetty, Poonam Mahajan and Manoj Kotak. Indications are that many of the sitting MLAs may be deprived the tickets so that fresh faces could be fielded.
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Meanwhile, Rahul Shewale, ex-M.P. of the Shiv Sena (Shinde) is trying to have his wife Kamini fielded in Chembur assembly seat which is now represented by Prakash Phatarphekar of Shiv Sena (UBT). This is has angered local BJP cadres because earlier the seat was regarded as a bastion of the party. Veterans like Hashu Advani had represented this seat i the assembly in the past.
