BJP’s Narendra Mehta celebrates victory in Mira Bhayandar with a 60,443-vote margin | File Photo
Mira Bhayandar: Maha Yuti candidate-Narendra Mehta (BJP) won from the Mira Bhayandar (145) assembly constituency with a thumping majority by defeating his Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) rival- Muzaffar Hussain (Congress) by a margin of 60,443 votes. While Mehta bagged 1,44,376 votes, Hussain stood second by securing 83,943 votes.
Sitting legislator-Geeta Jain who entered the election arena as an independent contestant after being denied a BJP ticket faced an embarrassing defeat by garnering just 23,051 votes as she remained a distant third in the final tally. Maharashtra Nav-Nirman Sena (MNS) candidate- Sandeep Rane secured only 5,243 votes.
Exuding confidence that Devendra Fadnavis would become chief minister, Mehta said. “First of all, I thank all the citizens, party workers and the BJP leadership for showing their faith in me. My victory shows that people want development and not fake promises. I assure citizens that the twin-city will retain its pace of development which had been stalled in the past five years.”
The results of this constituency seem to have set the cash registers ringing for the election commission (EC) treasury as barring the winner and the runner-up all other 15 candidates who were in the fray including the sitting legislator, MNS candidate and lesser known independents ended up losing their security deposit amount.
According to the figures released by the returning officer, the constituency recorded a voter turnout of 51.75 percent as 2,64,534 out of the 5,10,862 voters exercised their franchise.
As per the provisions of the Representation of People Act, 1951, if any candidate fails to get a minimum of one-sixth (16.66 percent) of the total valid votes polled the deposit goes to the treasury. In this case the benchmark to save the security deposit was set at 44,071 votes.
While 15 candidates managed to put up a collective total of 32,531 votes, the tally of 11 candidates remained extremely pathetic as they even failed to cross the 500 mark.
NOTA Secures Fifth Place in Final Tally!
2,279 Press the NOTA Button.
The ‘None of the Above (NOTA)’ option which gives a right to vote while rejecting all candidates – has performed admirably well (in comparison to votes garnered by 13 candidates) by securing the fifth place in the final tally of results. In an apparent show of dissatisfaction to any of the in-fray candidates, 2279 people have gone out, stood in queue and exercised their franchise, but chosen NOTA as their way of participating in the democratic exercise.
