Mumbai: They were both loyal Shiv Sainiks in the undivided house of party supremo Uddhav Thackeray. They both faced Enforcement Directorate (ED) probes. One defected to the ruling alliance, while the other stayed and braved hours of questioning. They will now take each other on in the Mumbai North West constituency for the Lok Sabha polls, making the battle a curious one.
A close aide of Thackeray, Ravindra Waikar switched over to the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena last month after the Mumbai civic body said it was willing to reconsider a land-grab charge against him.
The Shinde-led Shiv Sena Tuesday named Waikar as the official candidate of the Mahayuti — comprising the Shinde-led party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) – from the Mumbai North West constituency, which votes on 20 May.
He will now square off with Sena (UBT) nominee Amol Kirtikar — a battle being termed as a showdown between the “real” and the “fake”, though both claim they are the real deal.
Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) believes Waikar’s candidature has made it easier for Kirtikar to win as it becomes a battle of “who is the more loyal Shiv Sainik”.
“It is a straight battle between which of the two Shiv Sainiks got scared of probes and fled, and which one stayed back and fought,” Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Vinod Ghosalkar told ThePrint.
The Shinde-led Shiv Sena, too, pitches the electoral contest as one between the “real and fake Shiv Sainik”. “The real Shiv Sainik stood with Hindutva for Balasaheb and the fake Shiv Sainik forgot Hindutva for the sake of power. The fight is between the kaccha Shiv Sainik and the pucca Shiv Sainik,” Jyoti Waghmare, spokesperson of the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, said.
2 probes, different outcomes
Waikar, an MLA from Jogeshwari, which is in the Mumbai North West constituency, was booked by the Mumbai Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EoW) in September last year along with five others, including his wife, Manisha.
In January 2024, the ED raided premises linked to him. The EoW’s FIR was based on the complaint of BJP leader Kirit Somaiya, who alleged that Waikar had illegally obtained approval for the construction of a hotel on a plot that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had reserved for a garden.
In June 2023, after the Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government fell and the Shinde-led Mahayuti government came to power, the BMC, which had earlier given permission for the luxury hotel, reneged and denied consent.
However, earlier this year, amid talk of Waikar possibly defecting to the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, the BMC submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying it was willing to reconsider Waikar’s case. Less than a month later, he joined the Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
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Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s candidate, Amol Kirtikar, is son of the sitting MP of the constituency, Gajanan Kirtikar. Kirtikar senior is with the Shinde-led Shiv Sena now, while Amol decided to stay put with Uddhav.
The younger Kirtikar is being probed by the EoW and the ED in connection with alleged graft related to a contract of the Mumbai civic body to serve khichdi to migrants stranded during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Within hours of being declared as the Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate from the Mumbai North West constituency, Amol received a summons from the ED to appear before the agency on 8 April, when he was questioned for almost eight hours.
A Shiv Sena stronghold
Ghosalkar said the undivided party’s first corporators were elected from Jogeshwari. “It has a strong working-class population and many voters from the Konkan region, which is again our stronghold,” he said, adding, “People just have to see who is the real Shiv Sainik. Amol won’t need to work very hard now.”
The Mumbai North West constituency comprises the assembly segments of Jogeshwari East, Dindoshi, Goregaon, Versova, Andheri East and Andheri West.
It has a significant number of voters who until now have been loyal to the undivided Shiv Sena. The constituency has been won by Gajanan Kirtikar for the undivided Shiv Sena for the past two terms, before which it was held for two terms by the Congress.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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