 "Mumbai North 2024 contenders")
Residents in Mumbai North acknowledge improvement in local train service, such as the introduction of air conditioned trains, metro service, and digitisation in the past few years.
“We have escalators, and better lighting and lifts at each station, and they have also introduced air conditioned trains. But overcrowded trains during peak hours is a major issue,” said a resident. “Only if the metro connectivity improves in South Mumbai will there be an option for us to travel comfortably,” he added.
Historically a Bharatiya Janata Party stronghold, the party has fielded Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Consumer affairs Piyush Goyal as its candidate. Maharashtrian voters account for 32 per cent, and 28 per cent are Gujaratis.
In his public meetings, Goyal, 59, has promised to construct hospitals, resolving traffic-congestion problems and providing in-situ rehabilitation for slum dwellers. “I have requested the Railway Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, to start a train directly from Borivali to Konkan for people residing in Mumbai North, who have to travel the entire day to reach Konkan or any part of Goa via changing trains at Dadar. What if there is a train directly from Borivali to Konkan this Ganesh Utsav,” Goyal said in a public meeting on Thursday.
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The Congress has fielded Bhushan Patil, vice-president of the party’s Mumbai unit. “This is my janmabhoomi as well as karmabhoomi. For the past three decades I have been serving here. What connection does Goyal have with North Mumbai? He was Union minister via the Rajya Sabha, and he doesn’t know what janseva is. I am not a neta here but a karyakarta and so I was given the ticket to fight Lok Sabha from this constituency,” Patil told a newspaper.
“There can be nobody more Mumbaikar than me,” Goyal responded to the “outsider” barb by the Opposition while participating in a roadshow in the constituency. “I have lived in Mumbai all my life,” Goyal told PTI.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP’s Gopal C Shetty had defeated former actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar by more than 465,000 votes.
Residents say that encroachment on footpaths is another issue which is being ignored because of corruption. “The bus depot near the railway stations is crowded because of pan shops. Passengers stand away from the place to catch buses,” said a person.
“During the rains, trains are delayed, there is road congestion and potholes are repaired every year before the rainy season, but, somehow, they appear again,” said another resident.
