MUMBAI SUBURBAN

The Mumbai Suburban district was carved out on 1 October 1990, when the larger Mumbai district was bifurcated into Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburban. Its jurisdiction stretches from Bandra to Dahisar in the west, Kurla to Mulund in the east, and southwards up to the Trombay creek. Situated on Salsette Island, it is among the most populous districts in India. Unlike Mumbai City, which developed around the original seven islands, the Suburban district evolved along the broader expanse of Salsette. Over time, it has grown into a dense urban belt marked by residential complexes, industrial hubs, and transport corridors. The district plays a key role in the functioning of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, housing a significant portion of the city’s working population. Despite being part of Greater Mumbai, it functions as a separate administrative district with its own collectorate and governance structure.

The Mumbai Suburban district consists of the following four Lok Sabha constituencies: Mumbai North, Mumbai North West, Mumbai North East, and Mumbai North Central. The Lok Sabha constituencies comprise the following Vidhan Sabha constituencies:

Within the Vidhan Parishad, the district is represented by the Mumbai Local Bodies Authorities Constituency, the Mumbai Teachers’ Constituency, and the Mumbai Graduates Constituency.

The given maps provide an overview of the boundaries of the Mumbai Suburban district and the Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha Constituencies that fall within and around it.

Based on records from the delimitation reports by the Election Commission, it is evident that there have been significant changes to the Vidhan Sabha constituencies within the Mumbai suburban district over the years.

The given charts provide an overview of the changes that have occurred in the composition of Mumbai’s Lok Sabha constituencies and the reshuffling of the Vidhan Sabha constituencies with every delimitation that has been done.

The following is the current Member of Parliament (MP) representing Mumbai Suburban district in the Lok Sabha, as of 2024:

The following are the current Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) representing constituencies in Mumbai Suburban district, as of 2024:

There is no member from the Mumbai Suburban district currently in the Rajya Sabha.

The Guardian Ministers for the Mumbai Suburban district are Ashish Shelar and Mangal Prabhat Lodha, both from the BJP.

The following table lists the current Members of the Maharashtra Vidhan Parishad representing Mumbai Suburban district through various constituencies, as of 2024:

The following are the key administrative heads of Mumbai Suburban, as of 2024:

Mumbai Suburban District has one Urban Local Body, the Mahanagar Palika, and does not have a Zilla Parishad, as both Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburban lack a rural population. Administratively, the district is divided into two Sub-Divisions: the SDO Office Western Suburban and the SDO Office Eastern Suburban. It comprises three talukas - Andheri, Borivali, and Kurla - and includes a total of 87 villages.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, there were a total of 87 candidates from the Mumbai Suburban district (19 from Mumbai North, 20 from Mumbai North-East, 21 from Mumbai North-West, and 27 from Mumbai North-Central). Out of which, 17 candidates had criminal cases against them, with only six of them having serious cases registered.

The elected MPs of Mumbai North and Mumbai North-East had no criminal cases registered against them, while the elected MPs from Mumbai North-Central and North-West had seven and three cases registered against them, respectively.

From the 1940s to the early 2010s, Mumbai witnessed the rise and fall of several gangsters who shaped the city's notorious underworld. These individuals and their syndicates operated across the city and its suburbs, influencing not only crime but also politics, law enforcement, and real estate. Prominent names include Haji Mastan, Varadarajan Mudaliar, Karim Lala, Dawood Ibrahim, Arun Gawli, Haseena Parkar, Chhota Rajan, Rama Naik, Babu Reshim, Sai Bansod, Sada Pawle, Kiran Walawalkar, Ganesh Bhosle alias Vakil, Chandrashekhar Mirashi, Ashok Choudhary alias Chhota Babu, Parasnath Pandey, Shashi Rasam, Mohan Sarmalkar, and Kundan Dubey.

Haji Mastan, born in 1926 in Pannaikulam near Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu, was one of Mumbai’s earliest and most iconic gangsters. After moving to Bombay at the age of 8, Mastan began working as a porter on the docks by 1944. Over time, he entered the world of smuggling and rose rapidly in the city’s underworld. By the 1960s, Mastan had become extremely wealthy through gold, silver, and electronic goods smuggling. Known for his charisma and style, he was closely associated with Karim Lala and became the first gangster in Mumbai to gain celebrity-like status.

Varadarajan Mudaliar, widely known as Vardhabhai, was a dominant Tamil Hindu gangster who operated from the 1960s to the 1980s. He held immense influence over Dharavi and Matunga, where he ran a parallel justice system, with his word seen as final by local residents. His rise paralleled that of Haji Mastan and Karim Lala, forming a powerful triad of crime in Mumbai. Vardhabhai was known for maintaining strong ties with the Tamil community and controlling much of the city’s east and north-central regions.

Karim Lala led one of Mumbai’s most feared mafia syndicates from the 1940s through the 1980s. His group, often referred to as the “Pathan mafia” or “Afghan mafia” by law enforcement, consisted mainly of ethnic Pashtuns from Afghanistan’s Kunar province. Lala’s syndicate controlled bootlegging, gambling, gold smuggling, hashish trafficking, extortion, and contract killings. He was especially influential around the Mumbai docks and retained power for decades, remaining a major figure until the mid-1980s.

Dawood Ibrahim, originally from Khed in Ratnagiri district, founded the infamous D-Company, one of the most powerful and internationally recognised crime syndicates. He initially operated in Mumbai but shifted base after the 1993 Bombay bombings, which he is alleged to have masterminded along with Tiger Memon. D-Company is often described as a criminal-terrorist nexus rather than a traditional cartel, with operations spanning smuggling, extortion, real estate, and international crime. Dawood remains on India’s most-wanted list.

Haseena Parkar, Dawood Ibrahim’s younger sister, emerged as a feared and influential figure in Mumbai’s underworld, especially in the Nagpada area. Often referred to as the "mafia queen" or the "godmother of Nagpada," she took over many of her brother’s operations in the city after his departure. She was known to have mediated disputes and controlled extortion rackets until her death in 2014 from cardiac arrest.

Arun Gawli began his criminal career in Dagdi Chawl, Byculla, which became his stronghold. His gang was involved in extortion, kidnapping, and murder, often using the chawl as a base for criminal activities. Though frequently arrested, Gawli managed to avoid convictions due to witness intimidation. In 2004, he entered politics, founding the Akhil Bharatiya Sena and winning a seat in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from the Chinchpokli constituency. However, in 2012, he was convicted for the murder of SHS politician Kamalakar Jamsandekar and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The Great Bombay Textile Strike was a textile strike called on 18 January 1982 by the mill workers of Mumbai under trade union leader Dutta Samant. The purpose of the strike was to obtain a bonus payment and an increase in wages. Nearly 250,000 workers of 65 textile mills went on strike in Mumbai. As a consequence, the majority of the over 80 mills in Central Mumbai closed during and after the strike, leaving more than 150,000 workers unemployed. The textile industry in Mumbai has largely disappeared, reducing labour migration after the strikes.

The Bombay riots, a series of violent clashes, occurred in Mumbai (then known as Bombay), between December 1992 and January 1993. These riots were triggered by a series of communal tensions following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992. The Masjid’s destruction, carried out by Hindu nationalist groups, incited widespread outrage among Muslims across India, leading to protests and retaliatory violence.

The riots unfolded in two phases. The first phase, in December 1992, was marked by Muslim anger over the demolition, with many attacks on Hindus and Hindu establishments. In response, the second phase, in January 1993, saw violent reprisals by Hindus, inflamed further by right-wing Hindu organizations like the Shiv Sena, which called for retaliatory action.

The riots claimed around 900 lives, though some estimates place the toll much higher. The victims included both Hindus and Muslims, but Muslims suffered a disproportionately high number of casualties. Thousands of people were injured, and property, including homes, businesses, and religious sites, was extensively damaged. In addition to the fatalities, many women were subjected to brutal sexual violence during the unrest.

Several reports and investigations, including the Srikrishna Commission, which was set up to investigate the riots, pointed to the involvement of the Shiv Sena and criticized the role of the police, accusing them of biased and inadequate responses. However, many of the perpetrators were never brought to justice.

The violence culminated in further tragedy with the Bombay bombings of March 1993, a coordinated series of bomb explosions across the city, believed to be orchestrated by the underworld, in retaliation for the riots. These events left a lasting scar on Mumbai, deepening the communal divide and altering the social and political fabric of the city.

The movement to save Aarey Colony began in 2014, when citizens from diverse backgrounds came together to oppose the cutting of trees for a proposed carshed - a maintenance facility for Metro Line 3 in Mumbai. In the years that followed, the protest intensified, with multiple petitions filed in the National Green Tribunal, the Bombay High Court, and the Supreme Court. These legal efforts aimed to halt the project and have Aarey officially declared a forest, but most were unsuccessful, and work continued. In late August 2019, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation granted the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation permission to cut over 2,000 trees. On 4 October 2019, the Bombay High Court dismissed petitions against this move, and within 24 hours, the trees were felled. Two days later, the Supreme Court intervened, ordering a temporary halt to tree cutting.

Protestors saw a temporary victory in November 2019, when the newly formed Shiv Sena-led state government halted work on the carshed. However, in June 2022, just weeks into power, the Eknath Shinde-led government reversed this decision, reigniting the protests. Demonstrations resumed every Sunday, led not only by environmentalists and citizens but also by indigenous communities - including the Warli, Malhar Koli, Mahadev Koli, Kokna, and Katkari - who had been part of the resistance from the beginning.