116 candidates in fray for six Mumbai LS seats

All six constituencies in Mumbai which go to polls on April 24 are set to witness either triangular or four-cornered contests with Congress-NCP going all out to retain their bastions against the opposition onslaught banking on a "Modi wave".

As many as 116 candidates are in fray for the six constituencies, which are currently held by the Congress-NCP. Union Minister Milind Deora is locked in a four-cornered contest with Arvind Sawant (Shiv Sena), Bala Nandgaonkar (MNS) and Meera Sanyal (AAP) in Mumbai South.

Priya Dutt is fighting a tough battle to retain her Mumbai North Central seat against Poonam Mahajan (BJP), Farhan Azmi (SP) and Phiroze Palkhiwala of AAP.

In Mumbai North West, Gurudas Kamat is locked in a triangular contest with Gajanan Kirtikar (Shiv Sena) and Mahesh Manjrekar (MNS). Though starlet Rakhi Sawant is also in fray with her Rashtriya Aam Party, she is unlikely to make much impact.

South Central Mumbai is seeking a triangular contest with Eknath Gaikwad of Congress pitted against Rahul Shewale of Shiv Sena and Aditya Shirodkar of MNS.

Both Congress and Shiv Sena are battling internal dissidence with legislators Chandrakant Handore and Jagannath Shetty being opposed to Gaikwad and former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi unhappy with Shewale's candidature.

In North East, sitting NCP MP Sanjay Dina Patil is in a triangular fight with BJP's Kirit Somaiya and AAP's Medha Patkar. In North Mumbai, Sanjay Nirupam is locked in a four-cornered fight with Gopal Shetty (BJP), Satish Jain (AAP) and Kamlesh Yadav (SP).

All the candidates are braving Mumbai's hot, humid weather and interacting with voters taking out padyatras, street corner meetings and door-to-door campaign.

So far, campaigning has been low-key and glitz and glamour has been absent, whereas in the past film personalities would come out to campaign for candidates.

In Mumbai North, North Central and South Central, there are 21 candidates each in fray while in South, there are 20 nominees. In North East there are total 19 candidates while the least number of 14 candidates are in North West. There are 52 independents in contesting the polls.