Legislators’ wives & sons fail to impress

Samadhan Sarvankar,son of former Sena MLA Sada Sarvankar — now with Congress,too lost to Virendra Tandel of the MNS in ward 182 by over 200 votes. Outgoing corporator and nephew of North West Mumbai MP,Gurudas Kamat,Sameer Desai,lost in ward 50 in Goregaon to Shiv Sena’s Raju Padhye by a margin of nearly 600 votes.

Desai,who had lost his original ward to reservations,was given ward 50 though Shashank Rao,the son of BMC union leader and NCP leader Sharad Rao,was also in the race for the party ticket. “While I was given a ticket by the party,there were many forces working against me. The fact that I was contesting the elections against the interests of NCP’s Sharad Rao worked against me. Although I fail to understand why educated voters in my area will vote for another candidate who,in fact,has criminal cases against him,” he said.

While these sons have failed to make it as corporators,there are some children and relatives of MLAs who have fared better. These include the son of MLA Ramesh Singh Thakur,Sagar Thakur,who defeated Shiv Sena’s Dattaram Salvi by over 800 votes in ward 26 in Kandivali east. Shiv Sena MLA from Borivali Vinod Ghosalkar’s son Abhishek Ghosalkar defeated three-time corporator Rajendra Prasad Chaubey of the Congress by 1,900 votes in ward 1 in Dahisar.

Prakash Darekar of the MNS,brother of MLA Pravin Darekar,won against Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Ghadi by a margin of almost 1,000 votes while NCP’s Saida Khan too managed to secure a seat against Minal Turde of the MNS by a margin of over 3,000 votes. Saida Khan is the sister of NCP MLA from Anushakti Nagar,Nawab Mallik. Another NCP candidate Sunil Ahir,brother of NCP MLA from Worli Sachin Ahir,won against a BJP candidate in ward 193. In yet another brother-sister duo success,MLA Aslam Shaikh’s sister Qumarjahan Siddiqui won from ward 43 in Malad. She defeated Independent candidate Ruksana Siddiqui by over 4,100 votes.

While Sangita Handore,wife of MLA Chandrakant Handore,defeated RPI candidate Sneha Bhalerao in ward 148 by a huge margin of 4,319 votes,Ajit Chavan — husband of NCP’s Vidya Chavan,lost to Shiv Sena’s Prashant Kadam by over 2,000 votes. Despite all major parties announcing that they will not encourage leaders to bat for tickets for relatives and close associates,a host of MLAs had fielded their wives and sons among the ticket-seekers.