Latke wins with 77% votes, NOTA gets second highest

The Andheri (E) Assembly bypoll on November 3 was necessitated by the death of Sena MLA Ramesh Latke, Rutuja’s husband, in May this year. The bypoll was crucial for the Thackeray-led Sena as it was the first election after the split in the party following the rebellion spearheaded by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde along with 39 other MLAs.

Shiv Sena’s poll symbol “bow and arrow” had also been frozen by the Election Commission following counter claims by the Shinde-led Sena group.

It was also the first time that the Sena contested an election with the support of its Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies — the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). While the bypoll was initially thought to be a litmus test for MVA as an alliance, it, however, came down to an easy win for Latke following BJP’s decision to withdraw its candidate, Murji Patel, at the last hour.

Latke, who was employed with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), was pitted against six other Independent and smaller party candidates. She won a whopping 76.85 percent or 66,530 votes out of the total 86,570 votes polled. This is the highest victory margin for this Assembly constituency since its formation in 2008.

The victory came as a boost for the Thackeray-led Sena with jubilant Sainiks celebrating all across Mumbai and other parts of the state. Congratulating Latke, Uddhav said the victory has shown that people of the state are still with the Shiv Sena and termed it as the “beginning of a battle”.

“After many conspiracies, the first by-election was held. Our party symbol and party name was frozen. We contested the election on the torch (mashal) symbol. I am proud and happy that this torch has been lit and saffron has been raised. The credit for this victory goes to Shiv Sainiks along with the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Vanchit Bahujan Gahari, Communist Party, Sambhaji Brigade and other well-wishers. I thank all of them,” Uddhav said while congratulating Latke after the latter called on him. “This is just the beginning of a fight. I am not worried about the future battle now. I believe that together we will again be victorious in future,” he added.

On the question of NOTA getting the second highest number of votes, he said, “Our party name and symbol was frozen citing this bypoll and the people (Shinde faction) on whose demand it was frozen were nowhere in the bypoll. Others (BJP) initially fielded their candidate but after sensing everything (defeat) they also withdrew. If they had contested the election on their official symbol (lotus) also, they would have got the same number of votes as were polled for NOTA,” he said.

Independent candidate Rajesh Tripathi came closest to Latke, managing to secure 1,571 votes. In fact, on an aggregate, the other six candidates could only manage 7,122 votes.

The high percentage of NOTA votes raised eyebrows of many and stoked allegations of campaigning for NOTA and use of money power. Political analysts, however, believe that of the total NOTA votes, over 70 percent were the result of campaigning and out of vendetta for not allowing BJP candidate Murji Patel to contest the election.

During the previous 2019 Andheri (E) Assembly poll, NOTA accounted for less than 3 percent with 4,303 voters opting for NOTA.

While the Shiv Sena has been claiming that voters were paid to choose the NOTA option in the bypoll and some parties had even campaigned for NOTA, the BJP refuted the claims saying it had nothing to do with NOTA.

Latke even claimed after the results that the BJP withdrew its candidate after realising that he would lose and hence a campaigning was done for NOTA. “The BJP knew that they would get the same number of votes as NOTA got so they withdrew from the polls citing tradition but later campaigned for NOTA,” Latke said.

Meanwhile, congratulating Latke, BJP Mumbai president Ashish Shelar claimed Latke could win only because of BJP’s help and had the BJP contested the polls, Latke would have lost.

“The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) did not mobilise more votes. Had the BJP contested the bypoll, Shiv Sena candidate would have lost. So, Shiv Sena (UBT) should realise that Latke’s win is with the help of BJP,” Shelar said.

The voting for the bypoll took place on November 3 with 31.74 percent polling taking place, which is far less compared to the previous elections when it was over 50 percent.

Murji Patel pointed out that 1.90 lakh voters did not turn out for voting. “There is dissatisfaction and unrest among the public against Thackeray and Sena led by him so almost 70 percent voters did not turn up and almost 15 percent voters chose NOTA. There is no point blaming us if people are choosing to vote NOTA,” he said.