Mumbai: Byculla’s sitting MLA Yamini Jadhav of Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faced a major setback as she lost the assembly election against Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Manoj Jamsutkar who contested the assembly election for the first time. The defeat was a major upset for Jadhav as she lost the Vidhan Sabha election after losing the Lok Sabha election earlier this year.
Jamsutkar received 80,133 votes from the Byculla constituency, which amounted to 58.09% of total votes polled. On the other hand, Jadhav received 48,465 votes which was only 35.36% of the total votes. Jamsutkar won his maiden assembly election with a lead of 31,361 votes.
Although the opening trend on the continuing day gave a lead to Jadhav, her lead kept on decreasing as the counting moved forward. By the sixth round, Jamsutkar started leading from the seat and continued the lead until the end of the final round. While jamsutkar received 79,769 votes in EVM rounds and 364 votes in the postal ballot round, Jadhav received 48,465 votes from EVM and 307 from postal ballot.
This defeat was a major setback for Jadhav as she had also lost the Lok Sabha elections against Shiv Sena’s Arwind Sawant by 52,673 votes earlier this year. In the Lok Sabha elections, she had also trailed from her own constituency against Sawant as she received 40,817 votes while the latter received 86,883 votes in Jadhav’s constituency.
Jadhav was believed to have a strong hold over the Byculla constituency, as she and her husband have been corporators from the locality for multiple terms. While her husband Yashwant Jadhav was the chairman of BMC’s standing committee, she headed BMC’s Markets and Gardens committee.
Even though the constituency has over 40% Muslim population, she was believed to have a significant following from the Muslim community. She has reportedly organised multiple welfare events for the community, which has led to splits between the Shiv Sena and the BJP in the past.
Notably, Jadhav had defeated AIMIM’s Muslim candidate Waris Pathan with a lead of over 20,000 votes from Byculla in the 2019 elections. She was also the first candidate from Shiv Sena or any other saffron-clad party to have won from the constituency.
However, the constituency did not give its mandate in her favour for her second term and decided to go with Jamsutkar, who is also a former corporator from the locality like his competitor Jadhav.
