Andheri East bypoll: No surprise in Latke victory, but runner-up NOTA the scene-stealer

The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena won the Andheri (East) Assembly bypoll on Sunday as many observers expected but an eye-catching takeaway from the election was the high share of None of the Above (NOTA) votes at nearly 15 per cent of the votes polled.

The high percentage of NOTA votes — up from 2.93 per cent of the total vote share in the 2019 Assembly elections — raised the eyebrows of many, with the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, of which the Uddhav faction of the Sena is a part, and political observers suspecting the use of money power. Some political analysts claimed that of the total NOTA votes, over 70 per cent was the result of a sustained behind-the-scenes campaign carried out of vendetta for not getting BJP candidate Murji Patel to bow out of the contest. Following appeals from outfits such as the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the BJP withdrew Patel and provided the Thackeray-led Sena’s candidate Rutuja Latke an almost clear path to victory. The bypoll was necessitated by the death of Latke’s husband Ramesh Latke in May.