Maha Vikas Aghadi seeks to breach BJP’s Borivli bastion

The Borivli Assembly constituency has long been a BJP stronghold even during times when Congress held power at the state and Centre This dominance has been broken only twice when Sanjay Nirupam and Govinda each won a Lok Sabha seat once Since 1980 the BJP has never lost the Vidhan Sabha election in this constituencyIn this election there was a brief issue with the candidacy of BJPrsquos Sanjay Upadhyay as former MP and MLA Gopal Shetty rebelled against the party However central and state leadership successfully diffused the crisis It will be interesting to see how Sanjay Upadhyay performs in a seat expected to yield one of the highest lead margins in the Maharashtra Assembly electionSanjay Upadhyays main opponent in the Borivli constituency is Sanjay Bhosle a Shiv Sena UBT candidate Key issues in the constituency include less to no space for walking and issues related to hawkers lack of open spaces illegal hawkers rampant redevelopment and inadequate public transportSanjay Upadhyay BJPWhat is your plan to curb the hawker menaceThis issue is not restricted to just Borivli but the entire city I plan to curb it by working with the local authorities The menace is because of the presence of Rohingya and illegal Bangladeshis in the locality which I plan to uprootHow will you tackle lastmile connectivity and citizen safetyBEST routes are overcrowded An individual commuting to work from the extreme edge of Gorai to the railway station cannot afford an auto every day I plan on increasing BEST frequency and also increasing the number of buses on these routes to make the commute affordable There are also plans to increase the number of trains originating from Borivli by 150 more journeys in the coming two yearsWhat are your plans for tackling bad quality roads and pollutionWe are planning to increase the perperson tree ratio in the locality I am planning to work with the RTO and traffic division to implement prepaid parking facilities in the constituency so that the general population does not get robbed by the postpaid parking operatorsHow do you plan to address redevelopment water and healthcare issuesThere is a huge issue of water loss in the BMC water supply According to me multiple roads in the city are being concretised and during this process some water pipelines are getting damaged causing an increase in water loss Speaking of healthcare facilities there are no major hospitals between Vapi and Andheri causing many to rush either to Cooper or Kokilaben hospital Our Mumbai North MP Piyush Goyal has started the construction of two hospitals in Borivali and those will be fully operational soonWhat are your thoughts on SRA schemesSRA and MHADA schemes help in the creation of reasonably affordable housing for the middleclass population If there is a scope for the rich people to live in Mumbai there should be a scope for everyone to live here In fact the household help working here have to travel from Vasai Virar just for work BMC has also passed a proposal for affordable housing for such household workersSanjay Bhosle Shiv Sena UBTHow do you plan to curb the hawker menaceSpeaking of Borivli station the location has always been a crowded place We plan to create dedicated hawking zones to make sure that the roads remain hawkerfree Also action against illegal hawkers is required and a major penalty needs to be imposed on those hawking illegallyHow will you tackle lastmile connectivity issues and citizen safetyBeing a local I have faced issues sometimes while commuting from the station to Gorai The BEST frequency at night is reduced Speaking of citizen safety there are multiple CCTVs at various locations but some of these are nonfunctional We plan on getting these in working conditionWhat are your plans on increasing green cover tackling bad roads and pollutionI propose building a western freeway just like the eastern freeway to reduce the load on SV Road and WEH Also the Coastal Road will be operational in the near future which will reduce the load on the existing roadways Apart from this the commencement of BMC elections for corporators remains another top priority so that the local issues can be solved at the ward levelHow do you plan to address redevelopment water and healthcare issuesWe plan to restart the maternity hospitals in the locality to cater to the general massesWhat are your thoughts on SRA schemesI strongly oppose the SRA scheme or any extension to the capping of the SRA schemes