Mumbai:

Shinde Sena leader Milind Deora spoke to NDTV Monday – over dosa and some chai, a welcome break from a busy election schedule – about next week’s Maharashtra Assembly poll contest against Aaditya Thackeray of the Thackeray Shiv Sena faction, and underlined his ‘local’ credentials to voters. Mr Deora will contest the Worli seat in south Mumbai – a current stronghold of the Thackeray Sena faction and won convincingly by Aaditya Thackeray in 2019.

“For me… I am a south Mumbaikar. I was born here, I live here, I work here. This is my janmbabhoomi and karnabhoomi. No doubt Aaditya Thackeray is an important leader of the opposition and has been MLA for five years. So, in some ways, this is a political challenge.”

“We wanted to mount a serious challenge for this seat… to raise the stakes. We did think about giving the ticket a local leader, but the decision was finally taken that I should contest. It was felt that giving the seat to a local person can swing both ways. What could have happened is that the opposition could say, ‘it is an unknown person’ and there could be conspiracies.”

The fight for Worli, therefore, is set to be a high-profile battle.

In an earlier interview with NDTV Mr Deora had played down any talk of a ‘personal’ contest with Aaditya Thackeray, saying he had known Aaditya Thackeray “since his childhood” and said he would not speak ill of the young politician. He did, however, criticise him and his party’s failure to develop Worli, declaring residents were “tired of speed breaker politics” hampering growth.

Milind Deora is a former Congress leader who left that party in January, weeks before the general election, and joined the Sena faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who led rebel lawmakers into an alliance with the BJP. His candidature for this seat was confirmed late last month, and immediately the headlines were about a Sena vs Sena fight for Worli.

“We have lots of good workers here…” Mr Deora told NDTV when asked about the selection process that led to him getting the Worli ticket, a choice he jokingly called “a left-field decision”.

“This area is different… it is cosmopolitan and has a strong local identity. Many here identify as ‘Worlikars’. Worli also has had local leader serving as MLAs. In that sense, Aaditya was the first ‘outsider’ MLA,” he said, taking a jab at his rival even as he emphasised his local connect.

The Worli seat is in the Mumbai (South) Lok Sabha constituency that is widely seen as the backyard of the Deora family; Murli Deora won this seat four times, including a hat-trick of wins from 1984 to 1991, and his son, Milind Deora, claimed two consecutive wins – in 2004 and 2009.

Yes, since then the Sena has held Mumbai (South).

Back in March the Shinde Sena gave its new recruit, Milind Deora, the responsibility of leading its Lok Sabha election charge in the Mumbai (South) constituency. And he did a credible job; Arvind Sawant’s winning margin dropped from 1.28 lakh votes in 2019 to just about one lakh.

But the margin of Aaditya Thackeray’s win in the 2019 state election – he had a 65 per cent vote share advantage – underlines the magnitude of the task for the Shinde Sena and Milind Deora.

The two will also face-off against Sandeep Deshpande of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena of Raj Thackeray, who is Uddhav Thackeray’s cousin.

Mumbai:

Shiv Sena leader Milind Deora – the Eknath Shinde faction’s pick to try and win back the Worli Assembly seat from Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena bloc – played down any talk of a ‘personal’ contest with Aaditya Thackeray, the former Chief Minister’s son, who claimed an imperious win in the 2019 election.

He did, however, criticise Aaditya Thackeray and his party’s failure to develop Worli, declaring the people of the south Mumbai neighbourhood were “tired of speed breaker politics” hampering growth.

Mr Deora, 47, was nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the Sena weeks after ending his family’s 55-year relationship with the Congress. On Sunday he was named the party’s Worli candidate to set up a blockbuster clash against the younger Thackeray.

“It is not a personal battle… I’ve known Aaditya Thackeray for a long time. But the people of Mumbai… of Maharashtra… had high expectations of him when he came into politics five years ago.”

“But now I think people are tired of speed breaker politics. The people want Maharashtra to move ahead… that is the objective,” Mr Deora told NDTV, criticising Aaditya Thackeray and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance that was in power till the rebellion of June 2022.

That development is visible across the rest of Mumbai, thanks to the efforts of the Shinde government, Mr Deora told NDTV. “… whether you are an ordinary woman or someone using public transport, or someone commuting by car… there is a huge spirt in infrastructure development…”

The former Lok Sabha MP from Mumbai (South), a seat he won twice with the Congress and which his father, Murli Deora, won thrice with that party, also hit out at the Thackerays and the opposition combine over a “fake narrative” against the ruling Mahayuti alliance of the BJP, the Sena group led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, and the NCP breakaway unit of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

“The Maharashtra government has performed very well… whether it is for social welfare or infrastructure. And, therefore the people will re-elect this government”.

#WATCH | Maharashtra: On the performance of Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray as Worli MLA, Shiv Sena candidate from Worli Assembly seat Milind Deora says, “I don’t want to make it negative, but I certainly see that there are a lot of opportunities, a lot of shortcomings… pic.twitter.com/oP3lERDz9c

— ANI (@ANI) October 29, 2024

As for himself, Mr Deora declared, “I want to serve the people. If I get an opportunity to serve via Parliament or if through the Assembly… to me, service is service. The objective is – how do you empower people? That is my objective.”

READ | Shinde Sena Fields Milind Deora Against Aaditya Thackeray In Worli

“I know this area… have represented this area,” he said when asked if his Lok Sabha wins could be a tactical advantage. Mr Deora is expected to file his nomination papers later today.

The Worli Battle

Thackeray junior holds the Worli seat – a Shiv Sena stronghold – that will vote, with the state’s 287 other Assembly constituencies, on November 20.

Except Worli isn’t just a Sena stronghold.

The posh neighbourhood is in the Mumbai (South) Lok Sabha constituency that is widely seen as the backyard of the Deora family, but it has been with the Thackeray Sena since 2014.

It has held the Worli Assembly seat since 1990, except for the NCP’s 2019 win.

And the margin of Aaditya Thackeray’s win in the 2019 state election – a 65 per cent vote share advantage – underlines the magnitude of the task. The good news is that in the Lok Sabha election, although the Thackeray Sena won Mumbai (South), the margin from Worli was less than 6,500.

Aaditya Thackeray, though, is unfazed.

“The People Know…”

The junior Thackeray led a massive rally Thursday as he filed his papers, and told NDTV, “… the people have realised the BJP is a party of hollow promises (and) will stand against Eknath Shinde…”

READ | “People Know BJP, Shinde Looted State”: Aaditya Thackeray To NDTV

Asked about the battle for Worli, he said, “You can see the response of the people. That is their love… The common man and woman on the streets are giving me their blessings.”

A Third Challenger?

Raj Thackeray could be the dark horse in this election. His MNS opted not to field a candidate from Worli in 2019 to respect Aaditya Thackeray’s electoral debut.

READ | For Aaditya Thackeray, Worli Challenge Likely From Uncle’s Party

But all bets are off now, especially since the reduced margin in the Lok Sabha polls signals an opportunity to gain ground. “In 2017 (in municipal polls), we bagged around 30,000 to 33,000 votes from Worli. We have voters dedicated to MNS here…” Mr Deshpande told news agency PTI.

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