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Sunday, Sep 26, 2004

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National

Intense poll battle expected in Mumbai

By Kalpana Sharma

MUMBAI, SEPT 25. The upcoming elections to the Maharashtra Assembly will be intensely fought throughout the state, but most of all in the city of Mumbai which has 34 seats. In the past, local factors tended to override national issues. This time around the voter might think differently.

The voters have two clear alliances to choose from: the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance and the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party. In the 1999 elections the Congress and NCP fought separately. Although multiple candidates in each seat, plus the rebel factor, could affect the outcome in a few seats, the majority of the votes will be divided between these two alliances.

Voting pattern

This is already evident from the voting pattern of the Assembly segments during the recent Lok Sabha election. This was the first election where the Congress and NCP had a pre-election alliance in Maharashtra. This was hugely successful in Mumbai with the alliance sweeping the city, losing just one seat out of six. By way of contrast in 1999, the outcome was the opposite. Out of 34 Assembly seats, the saffron combine got 20 seats, the Congress just 11 and the NCP only one. The remaining two were taken by the Samajwadi Party.

`Solid' seats

Of the 20 that the Shiv Sena-BJP won in 1999, 16 can be considered "solid" seats in that one or the other party has held these seats for three consecutive elections. On the other hand, the Congress cannot be complacent about any of the 11 seats it won in 1999 as it had lost most of these in the previous 1995 Assembly elections.

However, there is a hint of voter preferences beginning to change. In the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress made notable gains in nine of the 16 "solid" saffron Assembly segments. The Matunga constituency, for example, has been a BJP bastion for three elections. Yet in the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress polled over 10,000 more votes than the candidate from the Shiv Sena. Similarly, in Goregaon, a suburb in northern Mumbai, the Shiv Sena had won three consecutive elections. Yet the Congress candidate polled substantially more votes than the BJP candidate.

However, another interesting perspective that emerges is the relationship on the ground between the Shiv Sena and the BJP. Despite the pre-poll alliance, in Assembly segments held by the Shiv Sena, the BJP Lok Sabha candidate often did not fare as well and vice versa. This suggests that although these two parties have an alliance, at the constituency level their cadre do not work very well together and are often visibly lacking in enthusiasm in campaigning for the other party.

Unhappy workers

In the coming elections, the battle is going to be fierce in these nine "solid" seats of the saffron combine where the Congress managed to get more votes in the general election. However, it could face a similar problem to the saffron parties at it has had to share seats in Mumbai with the NCP in this election. In 1999, the NCP won just one seat. Yet this time, it is putting up candidates in seven while the Congress is contesting from 26 seats. Congress workers are reportedly unhappy about "their" seats being given to the NCP. In addition, there is much grumbling about the "outsiders", that is candidates from outside the locality who have managed to get seats. There are close to a dozen new candidates that the Congress has fielded who might not get full and enthusiastic support from the workers.

The BJP too has fielded some political novices like fashion designer Shaina N. C.

The area where the tussle will be most intense is the heart of the working class area of Mumbai, the parliamentary constituency of Mumbai South Central where the Shiv Sena's Mohan Rawle beat Sachin Ahir of the NCP in the Lok Sabha elections. The man who indirectly helped him was the local don, Arun Gawli who polled 92,000 votes. This time, Gawli is contesting the Assembly elections from his stronghold of Chinchpokli. And with reports that he has cut a deal with Ahir, who happens to be his nephew, it looks like he will win that seat previously held by the Congress.

The big battle will be for the Mazgaon seat which has been held by the Sena for the last two elections after an ordinary Sena worker, Bala Nandgaonkar managed to defeat the former Deputy Chief Minister, Chhagan Bhujbal after he quit the Sena. In this election, Bhujbal's son, Pankaj, is standing from the NCP against Nandgaonkar. With Gawli neutralised (he managed to get the third largest number of votes in this segment in the Lok Sabha elections), the NCP stands a better chance of defeating the Sena.

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