Mumbai: Voting concluded in Mumbai’s Andheri (East) Assembly constituency on Thursday, with the lowest turnout of 31.74% ever recorded in Maharashtra. Earlier in the 2019 assembly election, the seat witnessed a 53.45 % voting turnout, which is around 22 % more than this year's assembly election, the seat witnessed 53.45 percent voting turnout, which is around 22 percent more than this year's voting turnout.
The lowest is 37% in the 1980 Assembly election, followed by the surprisingly low 46% in 2009, barely months after the city was shaken by the 26/11 terror attack.
The by-election was necessitated due to the death of Latke's husband and Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke in May. ETV Bharat figured out 4 major reasons and tried to understand why voters of Mumbai are so disinterested in exercising their franchise.
1. Shiv Sena's Rutuja Latke got indulged in a legal battle following his approval of resignation, so this court drama led to confusion among the voters and they didn't turn up for casting their votes.
2. Mumbai's BJP president Ashish Shelar had expressed his firm belief that Murji Patel, the authorized candidate from BJP, who had filed his nomination showcasing his strength will win with a large margin. But at the last moment, BJP backed off from contesting the polls which remained a shocker for its workers and they registered their displeasure and talked of boycotting the entire polls.
3. As MNS President Raj Thackeray, NCP President Sharad Pawar, and senior MLA Pratap Naik of Shinde-faction appealed for the unopposed election of Rutuja by writing a letter to Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadwanis, over which BJP also agreed. All these developments are not hidden from the voters. Over this development, workers questioned why such decisions had not been taken before? and subsequently, many of them decided to boycott the polls.
4. Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MLA, Anil Parab alleged that voters were being offered money to cast their votes. Such accusations during the campaign made voters fed up with the petty politics and that's why many of the voters kept themselves away from polling.
Earlier, reacting to BJP's decision to pull out of the Andheri East by-poll, Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Rutuja Latke said she was grateful and thankful to all parties.
In 2014, after the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance fell apart both parties contested for this seat. That time Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke clinched the seat securing 52,817 votes trouncing BJP's Sunil Yadav who garnered just 4,479 votes.
