As BJP's Manish Chaudhary Eyes Hattrick, Vinod Ghosalkar Aspires For A Comeback In Dahisar

Dahisar constituency in Maharashtra is witnessing one of the toughest fights in the 2024 assembly elections, held on November 20, with two major candidates with equal potential to come out victorious. Since BJP’s Manisha Chaudhary captured the constituency from the undivided Shiv Sena’s Vinod Ghosalkar in 2014, Chaudhary has been representing Dahisar. During the 2019 assembly elections, aligned with Shiv Sena, the BJP MLA retained her seat, defeating Congress’ Arun Sawant by a margin of 63,917 votes.

With splits in Sena, the political dynamics of the constituency has been changed. While the BJP fielded sitting MLA as a Mahayuti candidate, Shiv Sena UBT has nominated Vinod Ramchandra Ghosalkar as MVA candidate. Vinod Ghosalkar is a former MLA, who represented the seat from 2009 to 2014 as an undivided Shiv Sena legislator. As Chaudhuri is eyeing her third term this year, Ghosalkar hopes to make a comeback, especially banking on the anti-incumbency against the sitting MLA. The constituency was formed in 2009 and Ghosalkar became its first legislator.  Both the candidates have campaigned by delivering competing promises to the pressing problems the constituency has been facing, making voters more perplexed in their decision making.

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The constituency has been facing several issues including traffic congestion, lack of proper water supply, mangrove destruction and poor road infrastructure. There have also been several pending redevelopment works and many families are facing its burden, especially after the decision of the Airport Authority of India to impose high restrictions on buildings.

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Criticising the incumbent MLA, Ghosalkar highlighted that many issues remain unaddressed while promising to upgrade the existing set of civic infrastructure in order to ease the life of citizens living in the constituency. “Even though we have been out of power for the last 10 years, we never stopped working for the people. My son Abhishek worked day and night for the people and stood by them relentlessly during the pandemic. Even though he was a corporator, his popularity was immense. Today people are coming to us with teary eyes and telling us that they will vote for us because of the goodwill that my son has built,” The Indian Express quoted Ghosalkar.

However, a determined Chaudhuri has maintained that she has raised key issues in an assembly session and they would be resolved soon. The MLA has been campaigning aggressively to hit hattrick.