Shinde-Led Shiv Sena Names Ravindra Waikar As Mumbai North West Candidate For LS Polls

Ravindra Waikar will take on Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Amol Kirtikar from the Mumbai North West seat for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in the city.

Shiv Sena Shinde faction announces Ravindra Waikar's candidature from Mumbai North West Lok Sabha seat

Source : PTI

The Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena announced the candidature of Ravindra Warikar from the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha seat for the upcoming polls. Warikar will take on Amol Kirtikar who has been fielded from the seat by I.N.D.I.A bloc ally Shiv Sena (UBT). An MLA from Mumbai's Jogeshwari, Warikar was a close aide of Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray before he joined the Shiv Sena led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. 

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its then ally Shiv Sena (undivided) won three seats each out of the total six seats in Mumbai. This time, the saffron party has denied renomination to all the three sitting MPs in Mumbai.

The party has replaced Gopal Shetty with Piyush Goyal in the North Mumbai seat, Manoj Kotak with Mihir Kotecha in the Mumbai North East constituency and Poonam Mahajan with lawyer Ujjwal Nikam in the Mumbai North Central Lok Sabha seat.

The undivided Shiv Sena had won Mumbai South, Mumbai South Central and Mumbai North West.

After the party suffered a vertical split in 2022, Mumbai South Central MP Rahul Shewale and Mumbai North West parliamentarian Gajanan Kirtikar joined the Shinde faction of Shiv Sena. 

For the upcoming polls, Shiv Sena has renominated Shewale and Arvind Sawant has been given a ticket by Shiv Sena (UBT) from Mumbai South.

The ruling BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in the state is yet to announce its candidates for the Mumbai South seat and the opposition Congress is yet to announce its candidate for the Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat. 

Elections to all the six Lok Sabha seats in the metropolitan will be held on May 20.