BJP contestant wins Kandivali bypoll
The strength of the Bharatiya Janta Party(BJP) in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has increased by one more number after BJP contestant Pratibha Girkar won the bypoll in the Kandivali civic election against Congress party candidate Neelam Madale with a huge margin of votes. BJP contestant Girkar managed to get 9,491 votes, while the second runner up only received 1,984 people votes in comparison. Therefore, with 7,607 votes BJP won the by-poll elections on Thursday. After the demise of Shaileja Girkar, also a former Mumbai Mayor BJP gave the election seat to Girkar's daughter-in-law Pratibha Girkar.
While the Sena supported BJP, as no candidate was contestant against Girkar from Sena making it a one side clear victory for BJP. A Senior Sena party member claimed Girkar family has good relations with the Thackeray family.
Also, the family worked on the ground in the civic ward for many years, therefore Uddhav Thackeray the party chief instructed party workers to support Grikar in the election. Along with Sena, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) also supported Girkar in the bypoll election by not fielding any candidate.
Girkar while speaking to Free Press Journal expressed her happiness and stated, “I am thankful to BJP Mumbai and Maharashtra party president and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Uddhav Thackeray of Sena for supporting me to win the bypoll elections. I will now take the attention of the civic corporation on my ward constituency Kandivali which is facing lack of amenities and other problems.”
While after winning the bypoll the BJP’s total strength in the BMC is now 83 from 82, while the ruling party Sena's strength is of 85 corporators. The Congress has 31 corporators, the NCP has nine corporators , the Samajwadi Party (SP) has six, Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (MIM) 2, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has one corporator as remaining six are now with Sena. The number of independent corporators is five (out of which two independent corporators support the BJP and other three are with Sena)
After Changez Multani Jogeshwari civic ward 62 had been disqualified by small cause court on Wednesday, the second runner up of the ward Raju Pednekar of Shiv Sena replaced him. Therefore, increasing the strength of Sena in civic corporation from 84 to 85.