- Name: Gopal Chinayya Shetty
- Constituency: Mumbai North
Member of Parliament, Gopal Chinayya Shetty, 69 has been representing the area that falls under Mumbai North constituency in various capacities. First, he worked as a local corporator for three terms since 1992 and later, went on to become Mumbai’s deputy mayor. After that he rose to the state assembly from the Maharashtra legislative assembly from 2004 to 2014.
Since then, Shetty has been representing the Mumbai North constituency for two Parliamentary terms. In 2014, Shetty defeated Congress’ Sanjay Nirupam by polling in 70.1% of the voteshare by getting 6,64,004 votes as against Nirupam, who got 217,422 votes (23% of the voteshare). Subsequently, in 2019, Shetty secured 706,678 votes, bagging 71.4 % of the voteshare against Congress’ Urmila Matondar, who got only 24% of the voteshare by getting 2,41,431 votes.
About 60% of the 16,47,350 electorate had turned up to vote in the 2019 elections, compared to 53% in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
The constituency, which has a strong base of the Gujarati community, is known to be a stronghold for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with Ram Naik representing the constituency from 1989 to 1999. Subsequent to his defeat twice, first at the hands of Govinda in 2004 and thereafter by Sanjay Nirupam in 2009, Naik moved out of electoral politics. Gopal Shetty recaptured this BJP stronghold in 2014, riding on the Narendra Modi wave.
Mumbai North is a 100% urban constituency with a population of 23,52,550 including 3.72% of Scheduled castes and 1% of Scheduled tribes.
Gopal Shetty: Personal Information
| Name | Gopal Chinayya Shetty |
| Age | 69 |
| Political Party | BJP |
| Educational Qualification | Under Matric, Our Lady of Remedy School, Kandivli (W) |
| Profession | Labour job for machinery part repairing and plastic items |
| Enrolled as Voter in | 152 Borivali (Maharashtra) constituency, at Serial no 374 in Part no 277, Mumbai North Constituency |
| Helpdeskgopalshetty@gmail.com, gc.shetti@sansad.nic.in | |
| Contact Number | 9869011267, 022-28011892 / 28089567 |
| Address | Shetty House, Lokmanya Tilak Nagar, Poisar Gymkhana Marg, Kandivli (W), Mumbai. |
Online presence:
- Website: https://gopalshetty.com/biography.html
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GopalShetty.Official
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gopalshetty.official/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@gopalshetty2354
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/iGopalShetty
Criminal cases against Gopal Shetty
Gopal Shetty has nine cases registered against him that are in process at various courts. The oldest case against him is of 1998 of rioting in unlawful assembly and obstructing government servants from carrying out their duties.
Charges have been framed against him in two cases, including a defamation case filed against him in 2014 under sections 501 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and another under section 125 of the Representation of People Act, 1951 (RPA) for promoting enmity or enmity between citizens of different classes,religion, race, caste etc during elections. A few cases pertain to disobedience of public orders, unlawful assembly, obstructing public servants from discharging his public duty
He continues to have a 2012 case against him for damaging public property. Proceedings have been stopped against him in five cases under section 258 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 where magistrates have power to stop proceedings without judgements and such release shall have the effect discharge.
Read more: As monsoon intensifies, fear grips citizens living on the banks of Poisar river
Assets and liabilities
Details | Holdings in 2004 | Holdings in 2009 | Holdings in 2014 | Holdings in 2019 | Change from 2014-19 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Movable assets | Rs 4.87 lakh | Rs 29.52 lakh | Rs 3.44 cr | Rs 5.94 cr | Rs 2.5 cr |
| Immovable assets | Rs 7 lakh | Rs 2.34 cr | Rs 6.11 cr | Rs 9.81 cr | Rs 3.7 cr |
| Total Assets (Movable + Immovable) | Rs 11.87 lakh | Rs 2.63 cr | Rs 9.56 cr | Rs 15.75 cr | Rs. 6.19 cr |
| Liabilities | – | – | Rs 2.11 cr | Rs. 2.11 cr |
Positions held
In 17th Lok Sabha (2019 – 2024)
- Standing Committee Membership – Finance (2014-2025)
- Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Railways
- Member – House Committee
- Member -Rules Committee
In 16th Lok Sabha (2014 – 2019)
- Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Textiles
- Member – Public Accounts Committee
- Member of joint committee on the Enforcement of Security Interest and Recovery of Debts Laws and Miscellaneous Provision (Amendment ) Bill, 2016
- Member – Joint committee on the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017
- Member -Joint committee on Bill to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955
- Member -Joint committee on Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2015
Source: https://sansad.in/ls/members
Performance in Parliament
| MP | Attendance | No of debates participated | No of questions asked | Private Member’s Bill |
| Gopal Chinayya Shetty | 96% | 114 | 298 | 19 |
| National average | 79% | 46.7 | 210 | 1.5 |
| State (MAH) average | 74% | 57.6 | 386 | 2.9 |
Shetty is known to be a stickler for discipline and has 96% attendance in Parliament. He also received the Sansad Ratna award for the year 2023 for his cumulative performance in Parliament like raising questions, introducing private member bills, participating in debates and attendance.
He has participated in 114 debates in Parliament on issues such as the need to augment healthcare facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic and to set up a mechanism to prevent private hospitals from exorbitantly charging patients.
He has raised 297 questions in Parliament in his present term as against raising 465 questions in his earlier term. These include demanding a ban on foreign apps, demanding slum free Mumbai, seeking online permissions for buildings, seeking measures by government to ensure farmers do not destroy agricultural produce and demanding guidelines for hawkers and roadside vendors.
Her has also demanded setting of time limit for disposing cases against women and children and raised the issues of how market-linking price for petroleum fuels was impacting Indian consumers. He also sought external funds for Mumbai roads on the lines of its investments in the Metro transportation system.
MPLADS spending
| Date | Funds released | Total expenditure | Total works recommended | Total works completed |
| 2022-23 | Rs 2.5 cr | Rs 1.85 cr | 22 | 9 |
| 2021-22 | Rs 2 cr | Rs 1.84 cr | 14 | 8 |
| 2020-21 | Rs 2 cr | NA | 0 | 0 |
| 2019-20 | Rs 2.5 cr | Rs 4.6 cr | 102 | 61 |
| Total (2014-2022) | Rs 22.50 cr | Rs 23.69 cr | 430 | 247 |
Most of his funds have been utilised towards improving facilities in the slums like construction of toilets, drainage lines, gutters, water tanks, tiled pathways in slums, construction of roads and building facilities like community halls. He managed to utilise 87.69% of his funds, and had only Rs 1.4 crore unspent.
| Sectors in which MPLAD works recommended | Number of works recommended | % of funds sought |
| Health | 23 | 48.94 % |
| Infrastructure & allied | 22 | 46.81% |
| Education | 2 | 4.26% |
Gopal Shetty in news
Gopal Shetty was more in the news for making controversial statements like stating that Christians didn’t participate in the freedom struggle or that it had become fashionable for state governments to outcompete each other in offering compensation to farmers.
He had moved a private member’s bill demanding mandatory rendition of Jai Shri Ram after taking their oath in Parliament. In his constituency, he has also been accused of constructing commercial private gymkhana on public ground in the guise of beautification.
People speak
“Rejuvenation efforts for rivers, such as clean up, are on but are quite slow. Concretisation of river beds and basins is killing the river, practically making them drains, says Avinash Thawani, a Borivali resident and part of Mumbai March.
He regrets that critical links of important roads continue to be missing on the ground despite them being in the Development Plans (DP). This leads to bottlenecks, congestion and longer routes to ply leading to wastage of fuel.
Harish Pandey, secretary of the New Link Road Residents Forum states that Gopal Shetty has failed to act against the vast number of slums mushrooming on wetlands, mangroves and forests. Pandey accuses the elected representatives of ignoring the encroachments and development on green spaces.
Helping hand for builders and encroachment of mangroves land at ganpat patil nagar,Rivers Rejuvenation,D.p.Road,parking bay,and trafic resolving disability are key point to improvement