Mumbai: North Mumbai saw a political drama on Monday evening as two-term member of parliament from Mumbai North and two-term member of legislative assembly from Borivali Gopal Shetty announced to fight the assembly elections from Borivali independently. After Bharatiya Janata Party announced Sanjay Upadhyay as its candidate, Shetty announced to contest independently to provide local leadership to Borivali.
On Monday, BJP released its third list of candidates for the upcoming Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha elections. While the party workers were expecting the name of sitting MLA Sunil Rane or former MP Gopal Shetty, the party came up with an unexpected name of Sanjay Upadhyay, who is the general secretary of BJP Maharashtra.
Notably, Upadhyay was expected to be fielded by the party from Vile Parle but the turn of events last minute left everyone in surprise. The party workers in Borivali felt disappointed as yet another time, an “outsider” was given an opportunity in Borivali. Following these disappointment, Shetty dropped a bomb by announcing that he will contest from Borivali as an independent candidate to provide local leadership to the people of Borivali.
Talking to The Free Press Journal, Shetty said, “I am not of the opinion that an outsider should not be given a chance but this has been the case in Borivali for multiple times. The party workers have not been consulted before making such decisions and therefore out of disappointment they have asked me to lead them. I will not leave the party as I stand by its principles and policies but we cannot accept wrong decisions.”
Shetty will be filing his nomination form from Borivali on Tuesday morning. He added that Borivali has accepted outsider representatives like Vinod Tawde and Piyush Goyal and they have worked hard for the party but this time, the people are upset as the party has again repeated fielding an outsider.
Notably, Shetty has been a strongman of the BJP in the northern suburbs of Mumbai which comprises majorly Gujarati and other businessmen communities. In both the Lok Sabha elections contested by Shetty, the parliamentarian has beaten his opponent with a lead of over four lakh votes, garnering over 70% of the total votes. The party had decided to field union minister Piyush Goyal in his place since the seat is considered a safe seat for the party.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis are goind good job but this wrong decision by the party will not be accepted. I don’t know whether my act to file my candidature is right but party workers and people of Borivali have their hopes on my 35 years of public life. They believe that if not me, then who?” tagged Shetty.
