Ravindra Waikar of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction defeated Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) candidate Amol Kirtikar by 48 votes in the Mumbai North West constituency, according to Election Commission data.

This was the closest contest in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. While Waikar received 4,52,644 votes, Kritikar got 4,52,596.

Waikar was declared the winner after a recounting of votes, reported The Indian Express. While initially it appeared that Kritikar had won, Waikar demanded the recounting of votes as the margin of victory was small.

After recounting the votes polled with the Electronic Voting Machines, it was found that Kritikar had one more vote as compared to Waikar. However, re-checking the postal ballots placed Waikar ahead by 48 votes.

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Uddhav Thackeray told reporters that there were some problems with the counting process in the Mumbai North West constituency and his party is most likely to challenge the verdict in court.

Kirtikar’s father, Gajanan Kirtikar, is the incumbent MP from the Mumbai North West seat and is part of Shinde’s faction of the Shiv Sena.

Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction won three seats in Mumbai – Mumbai South, South Central and North East. Its INDIA bloc ally Congress bagged the Mumbai North Central constituency.

Out of the total seven Lok Sabha seats that Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction won, Mumbai North West is the only one it clinched in Mumbai.

The party also won the nearby seats of Thane and Kalyan.

All six Lok Sabha seats in India’s financial capital went to polls in the fifth phase of general elections on May 20. Maharashtra voted in five phases between April 19 and May 20 to elect 48 MPs.

The National Democratic Alliance in Maharashtra comprises mainly the BJP, Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party group. The Maha Vikas Aghadi primarily includes Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party group led by party founder Sharad Pawar.

After the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly polls, held five months subsequent to the general election, the united Shiv Sena led by Thackeray had quit the BJP-led alliance to form the state government along with a united Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress. The coalition collapsed in June 2022 when a group of Shiv Sena MLAs led by Shinde rebelled and formed a coalition government with the BJP. This split the Shiv Sena into two factions, with one led by Thackeray and the other by Shinde.

A year later, Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar, along with several party MLAs, also joined the ruling coalition. This split the Nationalist Congress Party, with one faction supporting Sharad Pawar and the other backing his nephew Ajit Pawar.

The Lok Sabha elections, the first major polls in the state since these political churns, was seen as a benchmark determining which faction of the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party have popular support.

Follow Scroll’s 2024 Lok Sabha elections coverage here