Mumbai root cause behind delay in Maharashtra seat-sharing

Mumbai: The tussle to grab seats in Mumbai is the root cause behind the delay in seat sharing in Maharashtra among the two diametrically-opposite allies - the BJP-led Maha Yuti (MY) and Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) spearheaded by the Congress.

Spread over two districts of Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburban -the financial capital has six Lok Sabha seats - Mumbai South, Mumbai South-Central, Mumbai North-Central, Mumbai North-East, Mumbai North-West and Mumbai North.

The results of the 2009 elections are very different from the 2014 and 2019 elections in Mumbai.

In 2009, the Congress won five seats while NCP took one - all seats were bagged by the Democratic Front.

In 2014 and 2019, the BJP-Shiv Sena saffron alliance won all the seats— bagging three seats each both the times.

However, between 2019 Lok Sabha polls and subsequent Vidhan Sabha polls and the 2024 announcement of the general elections, the situation has completely changed because of the realignment of the political parties.

The 2022 split within the 57-year-old Shiv Sena - with Eknath Shinde heading Shiv Sena and Uddhav Thackeray leading Shiv Sena (UBT) and the 2023 break-up in the 25-year-old NCP - with Sharad Pawar and his daughter Supriya Sule heading NCP (SCP) and nephew Ajit Pawar controlling NCP - has changed the equations.

Both MY comprising BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP and MVA involving Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SCP) have not yet arrived at the number of seats that the allies would be contesting.

To understand the seat sharing in Mumbai one has to look at the results of 2019 - Mumbai South (Arvind Sawant -Shiv Sena defeated Milind Deora - Congress), Mumbai South Central (Rahul Shewale - Shiv Sena defeated Eknath Gaikwad - Congress), Mumbai North-Central (Poonam Mahajan - BJP defeated Priya Dutt - Congress), Mumbai North-East (Manoj Kotak defeated Sanjay Dina Patil - NCP), Mumbai North-West (Gajanan Kirtikar - SS defeated Sanjay Nirupam - Congress) and Mumbai North (Gopal Shetty - BJP defeated Urmila Matondkar - Congress).

Of them, ahead of the 2019 Vidhan Sabha polls, Patil left NCP and joined the Shiv Sena.

Of the three Shiv Sena MPs - Shewale and Kirtikar are with Shinde while Sawant is with Shiv Sena (UBT).

Thackeray’s party has already declared that Sawant will contest Mumbai South while Kirtikar’s son would be fielded from Mumbai North-West. Nirupam was keen to contest Mumbai North-West and the unilateral announcement by Thackeray has rattled him with the Congressman saying that Shiv Sena (UBT) is not following the alliance-dharma. Incidentally, Nirupam had been a Rajya Sabha MP for the undivided Shiv Sena twice.

Deora was keen to contest Mumbai South, however, he played safe and joined the Shiv Sena and became a Rajya Sabha member.

The BJP has replaced Shetty and in his place commerce minister Piyush Goyal, a trusted aide of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being fielded.

Shinde is asking for two seats in Mumbai. On the other hand, the BJP is mulling to field Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar of Skill Development Minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha from Mumbai South.