The performance of the uddhav faction was not as expected in the assembly elections, but some of its winning candidates are being discussed a lot, including Haroon Khan. This is the first time in 25 years that a Muslim leader has won the election on a Shiv Sena-UBT ticket. Earlier in 1999, Sabbir Sheikh won the election from Ambarnath assembly seat from undivided Shiv Sena. Sabbir Sheikh used to be close to balasaheb Thackeray. He was also the Labor minister during Manohar Joshi's cm tenure. He died in 2014 after a long illness. After that election, no Muslim candidate had ever contested on a shiv sena ticket.
Haroon defeated BJP
Haroon Khan has defeated BJP's two-time mla Bharti Lavekar on the Versova seat. Haroon Khan defeated Bharti Lavekar in a very exciting contest. Lavekar lost to Haroon Khan by a margin of just 1600 votes. Haroon Khan got 65396 votes and Bharti Lavekar got 63796 votes. Raju Shripad Pednekar, who came third on this seat, got 6752 votes.
Did independents cut votes?
Apart from Haroon and Bharti, 14 candidates were in the fray. Somewhere these candidates also worked to cut votes. A good number of votes were also cast in favor of NOTA on this seat. 1298 people voted in favor of NOTA.
In 2009, Congress' Baldev Khosa won the election on Versova seat, while Bharti Lavekar was victorious in 2014 and 2019. Bharti Lavekar defeated Baldev Khosa in both the elections. In the 2019 elections, Bharti got 41,057 votes. There was more voting in the Versova seat in the 2024 elections but Bharti could not get the benefit of it.
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