Kandivali East, Maharashtra Election 2024: BJP's Atul Bhatkalkar Likely To Retain Seat For Third Time

Mumbai: The ensuing Maharashtra assembly elections are the first direct battle between the Mahayuti and MVA after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The campaigns have reached their final stages, and PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have also conducted election rallies in Mumbai. Being the capital city, the battle to lead in Mumbai is what any political party wants.

Mumbai has 36 assembly constituencies, including Mumbai city and suburbs. Some of the key constituencies in the western suburbs include Dahisar, Borivali, Kandivali, Bandra, Andheri and Jogeshwari, and key constituencies in the eastern suburbs are Mulund, Bhandup, Ghatkopar and Kurla.

The Battle In Mumbai’s Kandivali East

Kandivali East (160) assembly constituency was formed after the delimitation in 2008. Kandivali East assembly constituency is part of the Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency along with five others, namely Dahisar, Borivali, Magathane, Charkop and Malad West. Mumbai North is a bastion of the BJP and out of six assemblies, four are represented by BJP here. For the 2024 polls, BJP has renominated two-term sitting MLA Atul Bhatkalkar from this seat.

Kandivali East assembly has a high number of Marathi, Gujarati and Marwadi voters. It is one of the high-profile constituencies and consists of residential complexes like Thakur Complex and Lokhandwal. BJP looks to retain the seat and Union Minister Amit Shah too chose to hold his Mumbai public rally in Kandivali for the Maharashtra assembly polls.

In its first assembly election in 2009, Congress’ Ramesh Singh Thakur won from Kandivali East, defeating Jaiprakash Thakur from BJP. Since 2014, BJP’s Atul Bhatkalkar has been representing this seat. BJP has fielded Bhatkalkar for the third time and he is the official Mahayuti candidate. He competes against MVA’s candidate, Congress Kalu Budhelia. Many political pundits say Kandivali East is an easy win for the BJP.

Past Poll Statistics

Since its formation in 2008, the Kandivali East constituency has been seeing a direct fight between BJP and Congress. Congress’ Ramesh Singh Thakur was the first MLA for the constituency, however, BJP managed to snatch it in 2014. In the 2014 assembly polls, BJP’s Atul Bhatkalkar defeated Congress’ Ramesh Singh Thakur by a margin of 41,188 votes and in 2019, Bhatkalkar defeated Congress’ Dr Ajanta Yadav by a margin of 52,354 votes.

Constituency’s Performance During 2024 Lok Sabha Polls

Kandivali East assembly constituency is part of the Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency, the bastion of the BJP and in the 2024 Lok Sabha, Union Minister Piyush Goyal was elected as the MP, defeating Bhushan Patil from Congress. Piyush Goyal got a total of 6,80,146 votes, of which the Kandivali East assembly constituency gave him 1,08,536 votes. Bhushan Patil got 38,631 votes from Kandivali East.

About Kandivali East Seat

Kandivali East is not a reserved seat and is allotted to General Category candidates. During the 2019 assembly polls, the Kandivali East constituency had 2,69,510 registered voters, of which 149,979 were male voters, 119,529 were female voters and two were third-gender voters. The voter turnout in the Kandivali East seat for the last assembly election was 48.98 percent.

Current situation in Maharashtra Assembly:

Currently, the ruling disposition, Mahayuti in Maharashtra has 202 MLAs with it. Out of these, BJP has 102 seats, NCP (Ajit Pawar) has 40, Shiv Sena (Shinde) has 38 and other parties have 24.

MVA has 69 seats in its kitty. Out of these, Congress has 37, Shiv Sena (UBT) has 16, NCP (Sharad Pawar) has 12 and other parties have six seats. Fifteen seats are vacant.