Andheri East bypoll | Uddhav Thackeray faction’s Rutuja coasts to expected victory, NOTA bags second spot

Uddhav camp accuses BJP of ‘influencing’ voters to go for NOTA, which garnered the second highest vote share

In a foregone conclusion, Rutuja Latke, the nominee of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, coasted to an expected victory in the Andheri East Assembly byelection, whose results were declared Sunday.

The contest, necessitated after the death of Sena MLA Ramesh Latke in May this year, had witnessed a high-voltage build-up with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) first announcing their candidate Murji Patel against Ms. Latke, only to later withdraw him from the poll fray as a gesture of ‘magnanimity’.

While Ms. Latke polled 66,530 votes (EVM plus postal ballots), the second-highest votes — a whopping 12,776 votes — were registered under the ‘none of the above’ (NOTA) category, causing the Uddhav faction to accuse the BJP of a double-faced campaign against Ms. Latke, wherein they pulled back their candidate on one hand while actively influencing voters to select the NOTA option in a bid to undercut the MVA nominee.

Speaking after the results, Mr. Uddhav Thackeray said “there was no secret” behind the high votes polled under the NOTA category, quipping that had the BJP contested, they would have garnered the same number of votes.

“This was the first election after the ‘betrayal’ [of Eknath Shinde and other Sena leaders] and following the ECI’s freezing of the Shiv Sena’s party name and its ‘bow and arrow’ symbol…After the results, I am not worried about future electoral fights,” said the former Chief Minister.

A sombre Ms. Latke said the victory belonged to the memory of her late husband.

“The voters have returned the goodwill…I am thankful to all the MVA constituents [NCP and Congress] and the workers who have striven tirelessly for my win,” she said.