Key Contests: Kirit Somaiya vs Gurudas Kamat

MANDATE 2004 / LS CONSTITUENCY WATCH

He won the seat by a margin of just 7,000 votes in the 1999 election from a constituency that is intensely demanding and asks for a lot of hard work. Will Kirit Somaiya regain the Bombay Northeast constituency?

It is hard to say in a straight contest where Somaiya will cross swords with Congress leader Gurudas Kamat, also the Mumbai Regional Congress chief.

The last election was a triangular one where Somaiya had defeated Kamat but not before conceding more than 100,000 votes to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate.

This time, following an understanding between the NCP and the Congress, Sharad Pawar himself opened Kamat's campaign. With the NCP working for him instead of against him, Kamat stands a good chance of winning this seat.

Somaiya could get the highest number of votes from his supporters from Mulund, a predominantly Gujarati area. In the last polls, Somaiya got 400,436 votes as against 393,160 votes of Kamat. Kamat had represented this seat thrice earlier.

Compared to 1999 Lok Sabha polls where the defeat of the Congress in the constituency was attributed to the division of "secular" votes, which benefited the BJP, in the 2004 elections, the Congress, the Republican Party of India (Athawale) and the NCP have an alliance.

Both Kamat and Somaiya are well qualified and claimed to have carried out considerable development work in the constituency.

In 1996, Kamat was defeated by BJP leader Pramod Mahajan by a huge margin. But in 1998 tables turned when Kamat defeated Mahajan by a margin of 47,452 votes.

The constituency, comprises working class people and the Gujarati businessmen. The constituency, generally a cosmopolitan, also has several pockets dominated by Dalits, the fishing community and Muslims.

Both Somaiya and Kamat are techno-savvy and are using e-campaigning in a big way in addition to traditional padayatra, rath yatra and door-to-door campaigning.

The 52-year-old Somaiya, a chartered accountant who joined politics in 1970, says he aims at reaching 2.1 million voters through e-mail, SMS and door-to-door campaign and yatras. "I do not want to take any chance," Somaiya, who has a solid backing of the Gujarati population from Ghatkopar and Mulund said.

Somaiya said he did not believe in campaigning by speaking ill of his opponent but instead prefers to talk about his own achievements and his participation in national programme. But Kamat said, "I am comfortable talking about the negative aspects of Somaiya".

Kamat said he was forced to bring Somaiya's drawbacks into focus because the sitting MP had "lied" about the clearance he had obtained for suburban Nahur station and fifth and sixth tracks.

"In fact it was I who had secured the clearance," he claimed.

Walking through the slums of Trombay and Chembur, Kamat promised the voters that he would focus on solving the drinking water scarcity in suburbs and implementing the Rs 6,000 crore Mumbai Urban Transport Project and "I also promise to look into the upgradation of railways".

Citing some of his achievements, Kamat said the Kurla terminus for the long-distance trains was constructed during his tenure. The clearance for Santacruz-Chembur link road was got through his efforts.

Kamat claimed he initiated projects to curb pollution in Chembur and adjacent areas and also got the Airoli bridge constructed at a cost of Rs 80 crore.