A key fight between the opposing factions of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is unfolding in Anushakti Nagar in Maharashtra where Fahad Ahmad of the party's Sharad Pawar faction will take on Sana Malik, daughter of former minister and two-time MLA Nawab Malik.
Fahad Ahmad, the NCP(SP) nominee for the seat, is a known face of the anti-CAA and NRC stir, and carries experience as a student leader from the Aligarh Muslim University and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
Pitted against him is NCP's Sana Malik, daughter of Nawab Malik who is fighting this battle to stake claim to her father's legacy. Nawab Malik, who won the constituency two times before, has made way for his daughter in a seat that the party sees as his stronghold.
Malik's candidature was opposed by the BJP as well as the Shiv Sena over the money-laundering case against him as well as his alleged links to fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim. While Malik fielded his daughter from the seat, he moved to bordering Mankhurd Shivajinagar where the Shiv Sena and BJP have both refused to campaign for him.
On the opposite side of the fence is Ahmad (30), who is among the youngest candidates in Maharashtra this time. Having hit the limelight following his marriage to actress Swara Bhasker, he is pursuing a PhD from TISS where he had led a strike for over 100 days to protest the rollback of fee waiver for SC/ST students.
Ahmad says his focus will be on improving the healthcare and education facilities in the constituency besides addressing unemployment if elected to power.
On the other hand, Sana believes that the work done by her father, she remains a known and accessible face among the people in the constituency. This, she feels, would give her an edge in the fight.
In the Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year, Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate from Mumbai South-Central Anil Desai polled 79,767 votes (55.4%) in the assembly seat, giving him one of the biggest leads after Dharavi, while Shinde Sena’s Rahul Shewale bagged 50,684 votes (35.2%).
Polling for the Maharashtra elections will be held on November 20 and the results will be declared on November 23.
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