Andheri East Assembly Bypolls: "This is victory of my husband & development works done by him"

In a much anticipated result of the Andheri (East) Assembly bypoll, Rutuja Latke, the candidate of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), was announced the winner of the seat in Mumbai on Sunday, November 6.

She managed to bag more than 66,000 votes, followed by 12,806 votes polled in favour of the None Of The Above (NOTA) option, as per sources.

Rutuja has retained the seat of her husband after leading the Andheri East bypolls by 66,530 votes.

Latke has promised that she will try to fulfill the promise made by her late husband Ramesh Latke. While addressing the media after results were announced on Sunday, Latke had shared: "This victory is of my husband and the development works he did in Andheri. I will go to the election centre now and later to Matoshree to seek blessings."

"I thank everyone for supporting me. The turnout in the by-elections was low. This is the result of sympathy and hard work of my husband. My husband made a promise. I will try to complete it," she added.

Taking a veiled attack to the BJP, Rutuja Latke alleged that the party had no sympathy. If they had any, they would not have filled the form.

She further claimed that votes met by NOTA belong to BJP. A survey was conducted before the election and they knew that they were losing hence they withdrew the nomination of their candidate.

She also mentioned that there will be no kind of celebrations for the registered victory in Andheri East bypolls.

For those unversed, the election were held on Friday, November 4, whose voter turnout was 31.75 per cent. It is pertinent to note that the bypolls took place in the view of Ramesh Latke's death in May 2022. Sena's Ramesh Latke had represented the Andheri (East) Assembly seat twice. The Shiv Sena had won 56 seats in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly polls, which was brought down to 55 after his demise.

The total number of votes polled by the candidates at the end of the last 19th round of Andheri East assembly by-election is as follows-

1) Rituja Ramesh Latte (Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray): 66,530

2) Bala Venkatesh Nadar (Your Own Party): 1,515

3) Manoj Shravan Nayak (Right to Recall Party): 900

4) Nina Khedekar (Independent): 1,531

5) Farhana Siraj Syed (Independent): 1,093

6) Milind Kamble (Independent): 624

7) Rajesh Tripathi (Independent): 1,571

(Note: 12,806 - invalid vote)

Total votes: 86,570