As BJP faces sitting MLA in Congress bastion Malad (West), infra, drug menace to be key poll issue

Currently, the constituency is plagued by issues like illegal encroachment, land grabbing and drug menace among minors. Owing to the dense cluster of encroachment, the scope for infrastructure expansion has also remained limited. Shelar states that if elected, his objective will be to provide a “much-needed facelift” to the entire constituency.

“Even though Congress has been holding power for 25 years, development has not taken place in the constituency. There is no respect for law and order and the constituency is plagued by issues including drug peddling are illegal encroachment,” Shelar told The Indian Express.

“Our primary agenda is to make Malvani drug-free within four months of forming government. After this, our priority would be to remove all traffic bottle necks to ensure smooth flow of vehicles,” he added.

At present, Shelar serves as the Mumbai BJP’s general secretary and prior to this he has served as a municipal corporator from Malad (East).

Meanwhile, Shaikh states that development works have been happening in rapic pace in his constituency over the past couple of years. He also claimed that during his regime multiple traffic blockages were improved. “Infrastructure expansion is my key objective. After winning the last election, we had proposed the construction of a flyover at Mith Chowky which we have delivered within the deadline despite facing delays due to pandemic. My constituency has the longest length of concretised roads,” said Shaikh, the sitting MLA since 2009 who also served as a civic corporator for ten years.

“In the next phase, we plan to initiate the Madh-Versova flyover project and Lagoon Road flyover which have been stuck for a while. We will revoke the proposed Dharavi Housing Project which is just another landgrabbing scheme disguised in the name of development,” he added.

The Malad (West) constituency has a sizable population of Muslim voters who comprising 27.7 per cent of the total population, which is followed by 5 per cent of Christian population. Besides this, owing to its proximity to beaches, Malad also has a substantial population of the indigenous Koli community, East Indian Gaothans along with the Puravs and Pathares.

After Shiv Sena and BJP formed the government in 2022, leaders from the ruling Mahayuti including Mumbai’s guardian minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha frequented this constituency. Lodha’s rallies in the Malvani locality had spurred multiple instances of communal tensions after he termed the place as a haven for Rohingya Muslims.

On Ram Navami last year, tension erupted around a religious procession. Prior to that, the state government had also formed a committee to carry out a fresh survey to identify Rohingyas living in the area. “For the last two years, the ruling BJP-Sena government had tried very hard in doing divisive politics. But they have failed miserably, and they couldn’t find a suitable local candidate to field from their party. I have been working in this constituency for more than 20 years and I have grassroot level connection with the people living here,” Shaikh told The Indian Express.

In the 2019 Assembly elections, Shaikh defeated BJP’s Ramesh Thakur by a margin of 10,400 votes. In the 2014 polls, Shaikh defeated BJP’s Ram Barot by a margin of 2,500 votes. The assembly seat comes under Mumbai (North) Lok Sabha constituency. During the general elections earlier this year, the Congress had a lead of 975 votes from Malad (West) despite BJP fielding its heavyweight candidate, Piyush Goyal, who won the seat by a margin of 3.5 lakh votes.

“I am working in this constituency for 10 years. I have served as the corporator as well as the ward committee president. In 2019, I was supposed to get a ticket from here, but it didn’t happen. I have worked in north Mumbai for 30 years now and I know the area in and out and resonate with the issues over here,” Shelar said.

Both Shaikh and Shelar’s candidature was announced in the first list of their respective political parties. While sources in Congress stated that there was no second option sought by Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) while fielding Shaikh. However party sources maintained that the BJP had 27 claimants for this seat.

One of the claimants, Brijesh Singh, a long-term BJP worker, also filed his nomination as an independent candidate for the upcoming elections. Singh, who is an RSS worker, served as the state general secretary of BJP’s North India Cell.

“In 2012, there were only 100-150 workers of BJP in Malad West, this number stands at 1,500 now. Over the past decade, I had worked hard to strengthen my party’s base over here. The candidate fielded by BJP is not aware about the local issues and was only given a ticket because of his family ties with strong BJP leaders,” Singh told The Indian Express.