Ulhasnagar shooting case: Political feud had been brewing between the two Gaikwads

Kalyan (Thane district): Trouble was brewing up between the two Gaikwads for some time because of a long-pending property dispute. The fast-changing political scenario seems to have added fuel to the fire in the Kalyan-belt.

On Friday night, BJP MLA Ganpat Gaikwad opened fire inside the Hill Line police station and injured Mahesh Gaikwad, a former Corporator of Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation and the Ulhasnagar city Shiv Sena chief.

The two Gaikwads had face-offs and heated exchanges earlier too.

Mahesh Gaikwad, who had sustained six gunshot wounds, is currently admitted to the ICU of the Jupiter Hospital in Thane, where he was operated upon on Saturday and put on a ventilator.

The huge Kalyan township in Thane district, is located 50 kms away from downtown Mumbai nestled on the Central Railway suburban route — where there is a mushrooming real estate and expanding industrial base.

In fact, Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief leader Eknath Shinde’s son Dr Shrikant Shinde represents the Kalyan seat in the Lok Sabha.

The six Vidhan Sabha constituencies are - Ambernath-SC (Balaji Kinikar - Shiv Sena), Ulhasnagar (Kumar Ailani - BJP), Kalyan East (Ganpat Gaikwad - BJP), Dombivli (Ravindra Chavan - BJP), Kalyan Rural (Pramod Patil - MNS) and Mumbra-Kalwa (Jitendra Awhad - NCP).

Of the six Assembly seats, the BJP has a lion's share of three while the Shiv Sena, NCP and Raj Thackeray-led MNS commands one seat each.

Chavan is the minister in the Maha Yuti government and is considered close to Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

The impending 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls and the pending elections two municipal corporations in the area - Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation and Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation - has already heightened political activities in the area which falls under the Mumbai metropolitan region (MMR).

“The Dombivli-Kalyan-Ambernath-Ulhasnagar-Badlapur belt of Central line suburbs in Thane are considered a real estate hotspot. There is a rush in the lower-middle class and middle-class segment to buy flats in the area. There are political leaders involved in bagging projects in the area,” a source from the MMR real estate sector told DH.

"In fact, Ganpat Gaikwad and Mahesh Gaikwad too had a dispute over a property in the Kalyan village. Both Ganpat Gaikwad and Mahesh Gaikwad were in the cable business before they formally entered electoral politics and their rift is a known thing,” a senior political observer from Thane told DH.

As far as Ganpat Gaikwad is concerned, he is a three-time MLA from Kalyan East. While in 2019, he was elected on a BJP ticket, in 2009, he won the polls when the undivided Shiv Sena-BJP had an alliance and also in 2014 when the alliance broke. “Ganpat Gaikwad had his own following in the region but on the other hand, Mahesh Gaikwad too had established himself,” sources said.

Locally, several BJP leaders have been demanding that the BJP should contest the Kalyan Lok Sabha seat while the Thane seat be offered to the Shinde-headed Shiv Sena and this has strained the relationship. The junior Shinde and Chavan too had sparred over the Kalyan seat.

“With the split in the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar-led NCP, the expansion of the Maha Yuti or NDA, the dynamics in the region is changing,” the sources said, adding that if things are not brought under control.

"Several politicians at village and ward levels have suddenly become rich and have posh houses and high-end SUVs. The face of politics has changed in the region," sources said.