Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024 | Antulay poll scare, Coke ad and Alibag's 'name game'

The pristine beaches of Alibag overlooking the Mumbai skyline across the bay still carry the footprints of a bitter political rivalry between former Maharashtra Chief Minister A R Antulay and the Peasants and Workers Party (PWI).

Over the last 20 years, political opponents have fielded multiple candidates with the same or similar names to confuse voters in this Assembly segment at the northern tip of the Raigad district. The 2024 elections are no different. Four Mahendra Dalvis, including the Shinde Sena nominee and incumbent MLA, are contesting from Alibag.

If the voters were to go by only names and not the symbols, the sole distinction between other Dalvis contesting as Independents and the Sena candidate is the middle name ‘Hari’.

“This is a tactic that has been used in this constituency for long to mislead the electorate. But voters today are aware and vigilant. And they will not fall for such theatrics,” Dalvi told DH.

The Shiv Sena candidate is pitting against Chitralekha Nrupal Patil or Chiutai of the Peasants and Workers Party of India (PWP) that has pockets of influence in the Raigad district -- south of Mumbai. PWP is contesting this election as part of the opposition Maha Vikas Agadi alliance.

Before the 2009 delimitation, Alibag was part of the Kolaba parliamentary constituency, represented by A R Antulay on many occasions.

In the 2004 LS polls, five candidates filed nomination papers from Kolaba, including two A R Antulay. The Independent Antulay polled more than 23,000 votes. The “real” Antulay survived the scare to win the seat, defeating PWP’s Vivek Patil by just 30,000 votes.

A few months later, Antulay, by then a minister in the Manmohan Singh government, decided to pay back his opponents in the same coin.

In the ensuing Assembly polls, the sitting PWP MLA from Alibag, Meenakshi Patil faced 13 other candidates including four “Minakshi Patils” and two “Meenakshi Patils”. Patil’s name was at number 5 in the EVM. In every meeting Patil addressed, she would urge the electorate not to get confused with her namesake.

This reporter who covered the PWP campaign remembers Patil borrowing the iconic Coke campaign ‘5 Matlab-Chota Coke’ to clear the confusion over the “real Meenakshi Patil”.

“Remember number 5 on the EVM. 5 means Meenakshi Patil, 5 for Coca Cola,” she would hammer in in every election meeting.

As other Meenakshi Patils managed to eke out 5,000 votes from the PWP tally, and Congress’ Madhukar Thakur won by close to 6,000 votes.

A R Antulay had his revenge. (The other Madhukar Thakur on the ballot list got just 529 votes)

The 2004 battle between Antulay and Patils of PWP has since inspired many namesake battles in the district, especially the Alibag Assembly segment. Four years later in 2009, Meenakshi Patil reclaimed the seat despite three other candidates with the same name in the fray.

Two Mahendra Dalvis contested in the 2014 Assembly elections. One from Shiv Sena with the symbol bow and arrow, and another from JD(U) with only an arrow as the symbol.

In 2019, again two Mahendra Hari Dalvis filed nomination papers, but one withdrew. So the Shiv Sena’s Dalvi won by a comfortable margin.

Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls will take place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP will be going up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress try to make their mark. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faces a new challenge after Hemant Soren's recent arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP. The Haryana election resulted in a shock loss for Congress, which was looking to galvanize on the Lok Sabha poll performance, while J&K also saw the grand old party eventually stepping away from the cabinet, with Omar Abdullah's JKNC forming government. It remains to be seen if the upcoming polls help BJP cement its position further or provide a fillip to I.N.D.I.A. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.

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