Mumbai: In the the Phase-4 of the LS election, polling for Mumbai’s six seats will be held on Monday. Of these, the Mumbai North East LS seat has seven lakh Marathi, two lakh Gujarati and about 15% Muslim voters. Total 1,721 polling booths have been set up.
According to the EC, there are nearly 15.88 lakh registered voters in this constituency. Of them, 8.64 lakh are men and 7.23 lakh are women whereas 27,000 are first-timers.
Interestingly, 27 candidates are in the fray. However, the fight is between Manoj Kotak of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance and Sanjay Dina Patil of the NCP-Congress tieup. Moreover, Niharika Khondalay of Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Agadhi, a new political front, is expected to cut into Dalit and Muslim votes.
The Mumbai North East constituency comprises Mumbai North East LS seat: Ghatkopar East, Ghatkopar West, Mulund, Vikroli, Bhandup West and Mankhurd Shivaji Nagar. The BJP won in 1999 and 2014 while Gurudas Kamat of Congress won it in 2004.
In 2009, NCP’s Sanjay Dina Patil represented the parliamentary seat. The NCP has fielded Patil from here again. The incumbent MP, Kirit Somaya won the previous election with a margin of over 3 lakh votes against the second runner-up of NCP candidate. This time around, BJP denied him a ticket due to strong objections from Sena.
