Six aspirants including two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rebels withdrew their nominations from the Mira Bhayandar (145) assembly constituency on the last date of withdrawal on Monday.
The candidates who withdrew their nominations including- Suresh Khandelwal, Chandrakant Modi (both BJP rebels), Freeda Moraes (Bahujan Vikas Aghadi), Ramzan Khatri, Ajaz Khateeb and Suman Mehta (all independents). With the withdrawals, 19 candidates are now left in fray from this assembly constituency.
Notably, former city BJP chief- Advocate Ravi Vyas who was at loggerheads with the BJP’s official candidate- Narendra Mehta called truce and played an instrumental role in persuading the party rebels in withdrawing their candidature and quelling the rebellion which could have dented the electoral prospects of the party.
BJP Rebel Chandrakant Modi withdrawing his candidature | FPJ
BJP Rebel Suresh Khandelwal withdrawaing his candidature |
While the fight for the seat will be among 19 remaining candidates-mostly independents, a fierce triangular contest between Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) candidate-Muzaffar Hussain (Congress), Mahayuti (MY) -Narendra Mehta (BJP) and sitting legislator- Geeta Jain (Independent) is on the cards. Jain had dealt a huge blow to BJP’s sitting legislator and official candidate- Narendra Mehta by defeating him by a margin of 15,526 votes while contesting as independent after being denied a BJP ticket in the 2019 assembly elections.
The scenario of the current elections is similar to some extent as Mehta, Hussain and Jain are once again in the arena along with 16 other candidates including-Sandeep Rane of the Maharashtra Nav-Nirmaan Sena (MNS), Satyaprakash Chaurasiya (Sardar Vallabhai Patel Party), Adv. Arun Kumar Khedia (Rashtriya Swarajya Sena), Aruna Chakre (RPI-A) , Kalicharan Harijan (BSP) and independents.
With the addition of around 68,000 new voters, the electoral strength of the Mira Bhayandar assembly segment currently stands at 5,07,452 including-2,41,213 female voters, 2,66, 235 female voters, 11,328 voters (aged between 18 to19 years), 2,210 physically challenged voters and 5,061 voters aged above 85 years. In the 2019 assembly polls, this segment recorded a turnout of 48.41 percent with an electoral strength of 4,39,283.
