Bandra West seat: BJP's Mumbai chief Ashish Shelar seeks third term from onetime Cong bastion
Bandra West assembly seat, comprising an area with plush houses of some of Bollywood's top film stars as well as localities from Santacruz and Khar, was a Congress stronghold till 2014 before the BJP wrested it through its city unit chief and high-profile leader Ashish Shelar.
Shelar, seeking a third win on the trot, is pitted against the Congress' Asif Zakaria, who was defeated by the former in 2019 by a margin of 26,507 votes. Bandra West assembly seat has 2,87,657 voters, comprising 1,49,443 men and 1,38,204 women.
It has some of the poshest houses in the city, mainly in Bandra West and Khar, as well as teeming slum colonies apart from middle class localities of Santacruz. The area sees a steady stream of visitors all through the year as people from across the country arrive to catch a glimpse of film icons Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan.
According to observers, scarcity of basic amenities, shortage of housing, slum redevelopment curbs due to CRZ, especially in congested areas like Khar Danda that is home to slums and fisherfolk settlements, are issues facing the electorate.
Incidentally, in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to the Mumbai North Central seat, the Congress' Varsha Gaikwad had got a lead of 3,500 votes over BJP's lawyer-turned-politician Ujjwal Nikam from the Bandra West assembly segment. Christians, Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes and Muslims form a sizable chunk of the voters.
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