Uddhav’s Trusted Ally Arvind Sawant To Face Rival Yamini In Mumbai South

When Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena gave the South Mumbai ticket to Shiv Sena MLA Yamini Jadhav, Uddhav’s trusted ally Arvind Ganpat Sawant was chosen as the opposing candidate.

He sprang a surprise in the 2014 election by defeating the Congress MP Milind Deora from the Mumbai South constituency by about 128,000 votes. Though he was called a lightweight Modi wave has helped him sweep the victory.

Later in 2019, he was expected to give a tougher fight to Deora, however, Sawant won the election by about 100,000 votes.

His win in the last two elections was attributed to the Gujarati and Marwari voters. And this time he is counting on the Marathi-Muslim combination as his vote bank. The advantage he got while campaigning in the constituency is that the rival Shiv Sena faction announced Jadhav’s name just 19 days before the polling giving him a shorter time span to woo the voters. The delay occurred as the BJP and the Sena were in protracted negotiation for the seat.

The Shinde camp and BJP are seeking all ways to ensure the win of their candidate Jadhav to get elected. Though all the arithmetic favors Sawant, he is not exactly a popular candidate.

BJP has earlier raked up the issue of the family amassing massive unaccounted wealth and property of Jadhav and her husband. The saffron party raised the issue when MVA was in power but later once the Shinde split the party, BJP went quiet on the issue.

Arvind joined Shiv Sena at the young age of 17 in 1968. It was in 1995, Mr Sawant quit his job and entered politics full-time. He served as a member of the legislative council between 1996 and 2002.

Following his re-election in 2019, he was appointed as the Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises in the Narendra Modi government. However, he resigned from the post later in 2019 following a rift between Shiv Sena and BJP.