Piyush Goyal

BJP’s union minister Piyush Goyal has secured a victory from Mumbai North, defeating his Congress rival Bhushan Patil by more than 2.5 lakh votes.

Considered a BJP stronghold, the Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat is largely an open-minded constituency, accepting leadership of the so-called ‘outsiders’, and electing one royal and four political greenhorns since 1952. 

The seat has readily embraced the so-called ‘outsiders’ in the 15 LS polls it has witnessed, and sent MPs of whom three became Central ministers in various governments.

In a sort of reversal, this time, a Union Minister of the BJP, Piyush Goyal, was contesting his maiden LS polls from Mumbai North against veteran Congress worker Bhushan K. Patil, who also made his debut in electoral politics, and Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi’s rookie nominee, advocate Sonal D. Gondane (33).

Billed as an ‘outsider’ in the poll campaigns, Goyal (59), who hails from the posh Malabar Bill area in south Mumbai, locked horns with Patil, a resident of Borivali, while Gondane hails from Dahisar.

A chartered accountant and a lawyer, Goyal was banking on his image as a Union Minister for the past 10 years, his political lineage, the performance of the Modi government, plus the goodwill and the combined support of the BJP-Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to see him through.

Nevertheless, he faced a tough challenge from the Maha Vikas Aghadi-INDIA bloc nominee Patil, who had the backing of the Congress-Shiv Sena (UBT)-Nationalist Congress Party (SP) and other allies.

Patil was also buoyed by a perceived ‘sympathy’ factor among the Marathis after senior SS (UBT) leader Abhishek V. Ghosalkar was shot dead on Feb 8 during a Facebook Live interaction with his constituents.

Earlier, Mumbai North had elected a Kerala royal and Janata Party’s Union Minister Ravindra Varma (1980), Congress’ Narayan S. Kajrolkar (1952) who defeated B.R. Ambedkar from the seat then named Mumbai North Central, Union Minister V.K. Krishna Menon (twice, in 1957 and 1962), and BJP’s Union Minister Ram Naik (5 times, 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998, 1999).

Mumbai North also embraced first-timers like Congress’ Vithal Balkrishna Gandhi (1952), Janata Party’s Mrinal K. Mohile-Gore (1977), Congress’ Anoopchand Shah (1984), and Congress’ actor-politician Govinda (2004). 

Incidentally, Govinda became a giant-killer in 2004 when he trounced the veteran Naik in one of the biggest upsets. Naik again bit the dust in 2009 when Congress’ Sanjay Nirupam defeated him.

However, Bollywood actress Urmila Matondkar became a victim of Congress infighting in 2019, giving a smooth sail to the BJP’s sitting MP Gopal C. Shetty in the two BJP waves (2014, 2019), but this time he had to make way for Goyal.

(With inputs from syndicated feed)