In an unexpected turn of events, the local Shiv Sena (Shinde camp) unit has thrown its hat in the ring for the Mira-Bhayandar (145) assembly constituency which is currently held by independent legislator- Geeta Jain who has lent her support to the Maha-Yuti (MY) alliance.
This at a time when the MY alliance is fine tuning its seat sharing arrangements to retain its power in the state. Apart from Jain, two others including-former BJP legislator, Narendra Mehta and former city chief-Advocate Ravi Vyas are already entangled in a fierce competition by staking their claim to bag the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) candidature.
Independent MLA Geet Jain who has lent her support to the Maha-Yuti (MY) alliance. |
BJP legislator, Narendra Mehta | FPJ
Former city chief-Ad. Ravi Vyas | FPJ
Adding an element of surprise in the ongoing tug-of-war between the BJP aspirants, office bearers of the local unit of the Shiv Sena (Shinde Camp) unanimously passed a resolution by staking claim over the seat and proposing the name of Vikram Pratap Singh- who is considered to be a close confidante of Pratap Sarnaik. The resolution has been sent to chief minister- Eknath Shinde.
To justify their claim, the resolution signed by main office bearers including-Raju Bhoir, Nisha Narwekar, Sachin Manjrekar and Pooja Aamgaonkar states that owing to the successful implementation of a slew of big-ticket projects under the leadership of Sarnaik in the twin-city and various citizen friendly schemes floated by the Shinde-led government, the influence of Shiv Sena has significantly increased among the masses in the past three years. The resolution further exudes confidence of victory if the seat is wrestled by the Shiv Sena.
Notably, Geeta Jain contested the 2019 polls as an independent after being denied a ticket and went on to defeat her arch-rival Narendra Mehta of the BJP with a margin of 15,526 votes. However, despite BJP’s claims over the Thane (25) parliamentary constituency (which includes the Mira Bhayandar assembly segment) in the recently held Lok Sabha polls, Shinde managed to secure candidature for Naresh Mhaske who won the seat by a margin of 2,17,011 votes against the runner-up Rajan Vichare of the Shiv Sena (UBT).
