Deora, Narwekar in South Mumbai campaign mode

MUMBAI: Even though the Mahayuti (grand alliance) has not announced its seat-sharing formula, candidates from both BJP and Shiv Sena led by CM Eknath Shinde have hit campaign mode for the South Mumbai Lok Sabha seat.

BJP's Rahul Narwekar, who is the Assembly Speaker, has started his campaign by attending events and meetings across the six assembly segments that make up the South Mumbai LS constituency, including Worli and Sewri.

In Sena, newly elected RS MP Milind Deora has also hit the ground running with visits and community meetings across South Mumbai. Banners of both Narwekar and Deora have sprung up across the constituency, even in Sena (UBT) strongholds. Political observers said Sena and BJP are vying for the seat where Sena's (UBT) Arvind Sawant is the sitting MP and is considered one of the high-profile seats in Maharashtra.

Deora was elected to RS last month from Sena. Deora said he has expressed his desire to contest the South Mumbai seat to the party leadership.

Narwekar has had a blitzkrieg of meetings, visits and events across South Mumbai over the last fortnight where he has engaged with communities including in areas like Mumbadevi and Byculla that are minority-dominated, addressed issues of residents and taken on the Sena (UBT) in their strongholds of Worli, which is represented by Aaditya Thackeray, and Sewri.

In south Mumbai, Sawant had defeated Deora in 2014 and 2019. Sawant who is an Uddhav Thackeray loyalist was the Sena-BJP alliance candidate, while Deora was a candidate of the Congress-NCP alliance. Sena (UBT) is set to repeat Sawant as a MVAcandidate this year too. Out of six MLAs in south Mumbai, Sena (UBT) and BJP have two each while Congress and the Shinde-led Sena have one MLA each.