MUMBAI: Officials from the Guinness Book of World Records will visit Naigaum on Sunday, informed newly elected MLA from the constituency Kalidas Kolambkar.
He was elected MLA from the same assembly constituency of Wadala for the ninth consecutive term; he has been an MLA for the past 40 years. Kolambkar was a Shiv Sena MLA, then Congress’s and now BJP.
“My mother had taken me back home to Malwan in the Konkan region when I was little as Naigaum was then a dangerous place. I returned to Mumbai when I was in the sixth-seventh standard. One day I attended a public meeting addressed by Balasaheb Thackeray. I was sitting on the ground listening to him and was so inspired I decided to work for his party,” recounted Kolambkar sitting in his makeshift election office on a pavement in Naigaum.
Kolambkar started out by helping people in distress. He would claim bodies and arrange for them to be transported back to the villages in the Konkan and often organised blood donation camps. The son of a mill worker—his father worked as a time officer with Bombay Dyeing Mills—Kolambkar rose to become Gat Pramukh, Shakha Pramukh and then corporator from Ward 42.
“There were 10 candidates standing against me. All lost their deposit,” he said. “The term of a corporator is for five years but that time the term was extended by two years.”
“For some time I was MLA and councillor. It was 1990 and Chhagan Bhujbal recommended I be given the ticket. Balasaheb called and asked me to come to Matoshree. He said, “Aamdarki detoy (I am giving you MLA-ship),” said Kolambkar.
Kolambkar said he has always taken up issues of mill workers, asked for the installation of Bhim Jyoti at Chaityabhoomi and ensured Mumbai police living in BDD chawls get a 500 sq ft carpet flat in redeveloped buildings at Rs 15 lakh.
He went on a fast when housing minister Jitendra Awhad of MVA expressed his inability to reduce the price of each flat from Rs 50 lakh. “I fasted for two days and govt brought down the price to Rs 25 lakh. I called Devendra Fadnavis to offer me juice to break the fast and he announced a reduction of another Rs 10 lakh which Mahayuti govt then implemented.”
On why he left the Sena, Kolambkar said he liked the fact that Narayan Rane was quitting for a principle—Rane did not want to break Thackeray’s family. On why he quit Congress, he said he had only five demands for his constituency which it did not fulfil. “Devendra Fadnavis fulfilled all five.”