Mumbai: Former Congress MLA, Baba Siddique’s son Zeeshan is slated to contest the upcoming assembly poll from the Bandra (East) constituency with on a Congress ticket.
The candidature of the 27-year-old has received flak from his own party workers since its announcement. The trouble intensified when Zeeshan was found to be a relative of Ranjit Singh Bindra, a businessman who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday with links to land deals with the drug kingpin — Iqbal Ansari (Iqbal Mirchi), who was leading member of the Dawood Ibrahim led D-company.
Ranjit is the maternal uncle of Zeishan. Sources also confirmed that both Baba Siddique and Ranjit were silent partners in several business affairs, most of which were dissolved since Baba lost the 2014 assembly election.
Though Zeeshan accepted to be related to Baba, he denied the fact whether he is in talking terms with Ranjit. “Yes Ranjit is my relative, but we are not in speaking terms since some time,” stated Zeeshan speaking to the Free Press Journal.
“People are only relating me to him now because I have a fair chance of winning the elections,” he added.
Earlier on September 30, Congress workers went on a hunger strike for a day to protest Zeeshan’s nomination. Sources also clarified Sanjeev Bagadi, who was a popular face amongst the voters of the constituency, was denied a ticket because of Zeeshan’s candidature.
“Zeeshan’s candidature was filed only on the basis of money and muscle power while Sanjeev ji was the deserving candidate,” said a Congress cadre of Bandra (East) requesting anonymity.
“Baba was an MLA for 15 years from Bandra (West). The only reason they shifted to East is because Zeeshan’s candidature is looking weak in front of BJP’s sitting MLA Ashish Shelar,” he added.
The voters of the constituency appear lackadaisical when they were asked about the preference of candidature.
“No matter who comes to power, no one will work for us, because this is only a game of power and politics,” said 52-year-old Irfan Shaikh an entrepreneur and resident of Bairampada, Bandra (East) for three decades.
Also by not getting a ticket, Shiv Sena’s sitting MLA, Trupti Sawant will be contesting the election independently from the same constituency.
