Dinesh Kamath's news 'MP Naik faces a tough battle in the forthcoming LS election' that was published in Newsband

MP Naik faces a tough battle in the forthcoming LS election

By Dinesh Kamath

                                    Rajan Vichare of BJP

                                          Sanjeev Naik of NCP 

                                  Abhijit Panse of MNS 

                                 Sanjeev Sane of AAP.

NAVI MUMBAI: In the forthcoming Lok Sabha election, the Thane Lok Sabha constituency will be witnessing a keen contest between Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate Rajan Vichare, Nationalist Congress Party’s Sanjeev Naik, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s Abhijit Panse and Aam Aadmi Party’s Sanjeev Sane.

There are many people in this constituency who are wondering whether the members of Naik family of Navi Mumbai are more concerned about people’s welfare or whether it is their ambition of having their dynasty rule in the city that is inspiring them to contest elections. It was Ganesh Naik who was instrumental in making his family gain a stronghold in the city by first bringing Navi Mumbai under his control after which he brought to limelight his sons Sanjeev Naik and Sandeep Naik and then his nephew Sagar Naik. The people of Navi Mumbai are now being able to see through his game and this could affect the position of Member of Parliament that his son Sanjeev Naik is enjoying at present.

The residents of Navi Mumbai do not hesitate to give credit to Sanjeev Naik in the matter of improving the water supply of the city with his ambitious Morbhe Dam Project. But the residents of Thane and Mira-Bhayander feel that Sanjeev Naik is sidelining their areas and is applying his total concentration just on Navi Mumbai. This factor is another minus point for MP Naik during the forthcoming elections.

The political pundits consider Sanjeev Naik’s victory in 2009 Lok Sabha election as a mere fluke. According to them if MNS had not fielded its candidate during this election, probably Naik would have found it very tough to score a victory over then Sena’s candidate Vijay Chowgule.

But this time BJP-Sena is bound to put up a kind of fight which might give NCP a real jolt. That’s what appears from the statements that local stalwarts of BJP and Sena parties are making before the public. MNS and AAP are also not willing to leave any stone unturned to try and score a victory over NCP.

If NCP has won the support of the state government in the matter of cluster development issue, the neglect shown by the party in solving the problems of railway commuters in Thane might prove too costly for them. NCP has not been able to come up with a railway station near Kopri in spite of promising the same to the people over there time and again. The BJP-Sena leaders accuse Sanjeev Naik of just making empty promises to Thane residents and using his MP’s funds solely for the development of Navi Mumbai. In fact, Naik could not keep his promise of redeveloping the old buildings made to people of Mira-Bhayander.

As if all these drawbacks were not enough, NCP suffered another major blow when some important Congressmen of Navi Mumbai refused to campaign for NCP on the grounds that Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation which is ruled by NCP corporators were simply ignoring the wards belonging to Congress corporators.

Thus all these factors are bound to lead to NCP of Navi Mumbai and sitting MP Sanjeev Naik facing tough moments during the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. Naiks and NCP will have to chalk out something extremely drastic to maintain their top position in the city.