Who is Kalidas Kolambkar, candidate who scored 1st win for BJP in Maharashtra?

Maharashtra elections: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kalidas Kolambkar on Saturday retained his Wadala assembly constituency in Mumbai.

He defeated his rival Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Shraddha Jadhav by 24,973 votes. The BJP leader received a total of 66,800 votes, while Jadhav, a former Mumbai mayor, got 41,827 votes.

Notably, this is Kolambkar's ninth consecutive win, making him one of the senior-most MLAs in the state.

The BJP-led Mahayuti alliance is on course to retain power in Maharashtra. The alliance has won 18 seats and is leading in 207 other seats in the 288 assembly seats, as per the latest figures by the Election Commission. The Maha Vika Aghadi (MVA) alliance has won one seat and is leading in 52 seats.

Who is Kalidas Kolambkar?

• Kolambkar, 70, is known for his deep roots in the constituency. He was first elected in Wadala (formerly Naigaon) in 1990 when he was part of the undivided Shiv Sena.
• Over the decades, he has represented three different parties: the undivided Shiv Sena, Congress and, now, BJP.
• A Bal Thackeray loyalist, Kolambkar quit Shiv Sena with Narayan Rane in 2005 and subsequently joined the Congress.

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• In 2019, Kolambkar quit the Congress and joined the BJP. He also managed to retain his seat in the assembly elections that year by defeating his nearest Congress rival by more than 31,000 votes.
• The MLA claimed he left Congress because the party ignored the development of the Wadala constituency and didn't accomplish pending works on police housing, redevelopment of BDD chawls, and additional FSI for mill workers' homes.
• He said that he joined the BJP after Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis assured him he would fulfil the pending work.

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• Kolambkar claims that he polled more votes from new areas added to the Wadala constituency post-delimitation.
• He also claimed that he would enter the Guinness Book of World Records for winning nine elections on the trot.
• "I am contesting assembly polls for the ninth term and certain to win on the back of work I have done for people in my political career. I will enter the Guinness Book after my victory," Kolambkar, 71, told PTI in an exclusive interview ahead of Maharashtra going to polls.