Shelar wrests Bandra West seat from Baba Siddique

But after round 17, the thinning crowd of Congress supporters were crestfallen. “The result is shocking. We thought it would be a close election and never thought we would lose by such a large margin,” said Mazhar Sheikh, a Congress supporter.

The same shock was reflected on three-time MLA from Bandra West Baba Siddique’s face. “The verdict is astonishing, but it is a fact. I do not want to comment on what went wrong. I wish Ashish Shelar good luck,” he said.

Meanwhile, the BJP camp on the opposite side had many smiling faces through the day. After gaining a lead in the first few rounds and confident that Shiv Sena candidate Vilas Chawri had not gained a large vote share, the party workers had broken into chants of ‘Ab ki Baar, Ashish Shelar’ by noon. “Despite Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray campaigning in the constituency, Chawri was not able to wrest many votes from the BJP. Once we get a comfortable lead of 22,000 before the Bandra and Khar boxes open, we can be confident of victory,” said Dereyk Talker, an Ashish Shelar supporter and organiser of ‘Wake Up Bandra’ walkathon to highlight civic issues.

Once it was clear that Shelar had a lead of around 25,000 votes by round 12, cheers erupted in the BJP camp along with firecrackers.

Both candidates were present at the counting centre in the morning, and by round 12, Siddique left the centre, while Shelar kept visiting the media centre to keep track of BJP’s performance in the state and other parts of the city from television feeds.

Shelar claimed he was confident about winning the seat as he had a good lead and that people are voting for good governance. It was a sweet victory for Shelar, who had lost to Siddique by a mere 1,691 votes in the 2009 Assembly polls.

Post victory, a beaming Shelar, who had reportedly shown reluctance to contest from this seat for the second time this election, said, “I thank the people of Bandra, Khar and Santacruz for voting for me. It is great to have won by a margin of over 26,000 votes. There was a bit of Modi wave, but Shelar charisma played a big part in my victory. Voters knew the work I did and more than anti-incumbency, there was a positive vote in my favour and people wanted to see me win.”