Team Herald
PONDA: Former industries minister Mahadev Naik, who has been given the Congress ticket for the Shiroda by-poll, said he is ready to take on MGP’s Deepak Dhavalikar and BJP’s Subash Shirodkar.
When asked what would be impact of Deepak Dhavalikar contesting Shiroda by-poll on Congress and BJP vote bank, he said, “MGP contesting by poll would not have any major impact on Congress votes. You know what happened last time in 2017 Assembly election. MGP will not have any impact on Congress but as usual MGP will only damage BJP’s vote share. Congress will manage to retain the seat comfortably by 12000-vote margin.
It may be recalled that when Subash Shirodkar resigned from the Congress in October 2018 and joined the BJP, Naik got furious over Subhash’s defection and vowed to defeat him. February this year, Naik left the BJP and joined Congress.
When asked how Congress would emerge victorious in Shiroda he replied saying “I am confident of retaining the seat for Congress as I know my voters. I was defeated last time on BJP ticket because BJP itself worked against me. This is because I worked for development of my constituency.” He said, “Congress has traditional share of 7,000 votes. Further during last election, I got 6286 votes, which includes majority share of my personal votes. This will help me to win by 12,000 to 13,000-vote margin.”
“Recently, we saw how the BJP supporters joined the MGP rally. When I was the minister I managed to hike the OBC reservation from 19% to 27% for Bahujans. BJP didn’t like my work as I was the senior leader of Bahujans in BJP. They spread lies about me that I am rude and the voters fell prey to such ‘false’ campaign, but this time I am sure that they will not fall prey.”
