Rutuja Latke – the Shiv Sena candidate for Andheri East State Assembly bye-elections – has won with 66,530 votes. A total of 86,198 votes had been cast, of which Latke secured 76.85% votes.
The other seven candidates couldn’t secure even 2% votes in the election. It is being said that Latke received many votes from Muslim areas which helped her win by a big margin.
According to local Shiv Sena leaders Marol Chimatpada, Bhandarwada, Mogra Pada, Mafkan Nagar and Hanjar Nagar are some Muslim-dominated areas in Andheri East where citizens voted for Latke.
According to party workers, in the Hanjar Nagar area (at polling Booth No 136) a total of 384 people cast their votes, of which 255 were in favour of Latke.
Similarly, in Bhandarwada, (polling Booth No 60), 171 votes were cast, of which 133 were in her favour. In Mogra Pada (Booth No 62), of 568 votes cast, 496 were for Latke. In Chimatpada area, of 2,613 votes cast, 2,134 were secured by her. Similarly, in Mogarapada area where Shiv Sena Shakha 72 exists in that area listno. 150 to 171 showed that of the total 4203, 3250 voters chose Latke.
Pramod Sawant, Andheri Vidhansabha sanghatak said, “Muslim Community people were happy with Uddhavsaheb’s work in the last two and half years as CM. They had made up their minds to support Uddhavsaheb’s candidate. Late Ramesh Latke had also worked for their welfare.”
Shiv Sena MP, Arvind Sawant said “Rutuja Latke’s voting results shows what BJP had done with us during the 2019 elections. At that time BJP had supported Murji Patel secreatly who contested elections independently. Ramesh Latke got only 56 thousand votes despite having more than 52 percent of the total voting. This time Rutuja Latke contested alone and got 66530 votes out of 86,198 votes.”
“They (Muslims) appreciated our type of Hindutva whichisnot based onhatred, enmity and revenge but on love for the country, patriotism,” Sawant added.
