THE RUN UP to the Lok Sabha elections saw Congress’ Urmila Matondkar, the candidate from Mumbai North, playing the ‘Marathi Mulgi’ card in her electoral debut in a constituency that has both Gujarati and Marathi voters, but to no effect. BJP candidate Gopal Shetty’s victory margin of 4,46,247 votes — higher than in 2014 — over Matondkar suggests that he found as much support in the Marathi and minority-dominated Assembly segments as he did in his traditional Gujarati and Marwari voter base. According to the data released by the Election Commission of India, Shetty won all six Assembly constituencies, including Magathane and Malad West that have a sizable Marathi and minority population. In fact, Matondkar who wore her Marathi roots on her sleeve through her campaign and enjoyed support from MNS chief Raj Thackeray, struggled in the Marathi-dominated Magathane. Shetty fetched 1,08,286 votes as opposed to Matondkar, who managed 36, 417 votes in Magathane. The BJP managed to wrest Malad West too, which has a significant minority vote and had elected a Congress MLA in the 2014 state polls. Shetty managed a lead of 20,027 votes over Matondkar in Malad West. Shetty also dominated the other four Assembly segments — Borivali, Dahisar, Kandivali East and Charkop. He received 1,52,611 votes from the Gujarati dominated Borivali, the highest among all the six constituencies, followed by 1.3 lakh votes from Charkop, another Gujarati and Marwari dominated area. When contacted, Shetty said, “We had received a fair share of votes from the areas in the last election too. However, my work in the last five years helped me receive more support from these two constituencies this time.” Mumbai North also recorded the highest turnout of 59.32 per cent among the six Mumbai seats. This was at least six percentage points higher than the turnout recorded in the 2014 elections, when 53.07 per cent votes were cast. With a substantial Gujarati-speaking middle class population, the BJP had won from the constituency with second highest margin in India last time.
