Tough Fight For Mumbai's 'Muslim Leader'

'In this assembly election, Muslims here will vote for one who works, but also one who safeguards their identity.'

'Their existence is more important they feel, than a faulty light meter. So yes, a Muslim representative will make a difference.'

Jyoti Punwani reports from Mumbai's Muslim dominated Mankhurd Shivajinagar constituency where sitting MLA Abu Asim Azmi faces a tough contest from the NCP's Nawab Malik.

Being a Muslim MLA is not enough it seems, in Mumbai's only Muslim-majority constituency.

"Abu Asim Azmi must not be re-elected. Anyone but him," two autorickshaw drivers said while taking me across the constituency. No reasons were given, just that they wanted someone new. Both were Muslim.

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For those who feel strongly about the lack of Muslim representation in elected bodies, the Mankhurd Shivajinagar constituency should come as a balm. Among all of Mumbai's constituencies, only here are Muslims more than half -- 53%.

The constituency has been represented by Mumbai's most well-known Muslim leader for the last 15 years, and ever since he got elected in 2009, Abu Asim Azmi, Maharashtra president of the Samajwadi Party, has come back with a higher margin.

What more could Muslims ask for?

A lot apparently.

The auto drivers referred to above were not the only ones determined to see the back of the sitting MLA.

A group of Muslim women in Baiganwadi took me to a broken public toilet in their locality. Their Samajwadi Party corporator had wanted to repair it, but as a two-storeyed structure. The women refused, pointing out that the top storey would be used by drug addicts, as was common across the constituency.

So, for the past two years, the toilet has remained in a state of disrepair, forcing residents, including the handicapped and elderly, to make their way to another toilet 10 minutes away.

This toilet is not only locked up at night, but users also have to pay Rs 3 per use per person, working out to Rs 30 a day for a family where most are daily wage earners.

Roughly the same amount was spent by the women on dropping and picking up their daughters to and from school, for there is no BMC school beyond Class 9 in their vicinity. Nor is there any municipal hospital which can deal with emergencies, specially during pregnancy. The nearest such hospitals are a 20-minute auto ride away at the best of times, through bad roads.

To top it all, is the easy availability of drugs, which has made the area a hub of crime. "We had requested Azmi to ensure that the police patrol here at least three times at night," said the women. "They don't."

The M East ward, in which lies the Mankhurd Shivajinagar constituency, has long been notorious for the worst human development indices in Mumbai. What that means in daily life came through in the anger of these women -- housewives who'd lived in Baiganwadi for 40 years and more -- as they recounted the reasons they wouldn't vote for Abu Asim Azmi.

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That the constituency with the largest concentration of Muslims should also have the worst human development indices should have been a concern for the man who has represented it for 15 years, specially one who has built his image as a "Muslim leader." Incidentally, Azmi is the second richest MLA in Mumbai.

While Azmi told this reporter that he had done a lot (see interview), the reality on the ground speaks for itself, and has prompted a group of youth, all professionals or students, to form the Govandi Citizens Welfare Forum.

Be it the health hazards caused by the Deonar dumping ground and the biomedical waste management plant that lie in their vicinity, or the lack of space for burial as the only graveyard available to them gets full, Faiyyaz Shaikh and his colleagues have gone to court to get these problems resolved.

If their MLA lacked the necessary political clout as he claimed, why hadn't he approached the court, they asked.

The Forum's activities have brought them in confrontation with Azmi, specially their fight for public space, a luxury in the area.

Forum members showed this reporter how a public library run by Azmi's trust, built on a municipal ground, has been made to share space with a 'skill development centre' which provides certificates for those applying for jobs abroad. It is no coincidence that Azmi runs a recruitment agency.

While the skill centre's Web site has endorsements from a firm in Saudi Arabia, RTI queries by Forum members have revealed that its claims of being registered with government agencies are not correct.

"Two batches of UPSC candidates could have benefited from the library had it been given the entire space," lamented Saeed Shaikh, whose commitment to the library is seen in the sticker he has put up on his autorickshaw. "But our MLA doesn't know the value of education."

Students leaving the library complained that the inside gets so hot during the day that their mobiles switch off automatically.

Strangely, right in front of the library, Azmi had created a cricket ground with artificial turf, which was let out to nearby schools by the hour. While that was available round the clock, the library closes at 7.

The cricket ground has now been sealed, after Forum members complained to the BMC.

Tired of pleading with authorities who question their locus standi, the Forum has decided to acquire that locus. Forum member Ateeque Ahmed Khan is now taking on Azmi as an AIMIM candidate.

Known as 'Ateeque Sir' for the number of students he has coached free of charge, the 36-year-old Baiganwadi resident is an MA in economics and a law student, unusual qualifications for an AIMIM candidate.

Khan's speech on Sunday when Akbaruddin Owaisi came to campaign for him, was an impassioned listing of the many ways in which the constituency lags behind the rest of Mumbai, be it in life span, infant mortality, accidents or girls' education, while surpassing the city in TB cases.

Even Akbaruddin was forced to acknowledge the effect Khan's speech had on him. He urged the audience not to let Khan's newness as an aspirant deter them from voting him in so that he could change their lives.

Both the Owaisi brothers campaigned for Khan, an indicator of the importance they give this first-time aspirant. However, the exhortations of the Owaisi brothers have never been enough of a factor in the victory of AIMIM candidates.

Despite Akbaruddin's exhortation, Khan's commitment may not be enough to counter not just Abu Asim Azmi's well-entrenched network (the Samajwadi Party has four corporators here), but also the other old warhorse who's entered the fray: Nawab Malik of Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party.

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Malik's entry has galvanised the atmosphere. "For the first time in 15 years, there will be a real fight," said many residents, alleging that Azmi was skilled in "managing" his opponents.

Mindful of his electorate, Malik has been careful to remove all traces of the BJP from his campaign.

Ajit Pawar even wore a fur cap in the blazing heat during his road show with Malik and his daughter Sana (contesting from the adjacent constituency of Anushakti Nagar).

But voters know.

"No chance of voting for him," said Umar Bhai, coordinator of the mohalla clinic started in the constituency's Mandala area by the Kamgar Sanrakshan Sammaan Samiti (KSSS), a workers' organisation.

While Umar Bhai was cynical about Azmi, ("he is now, after 15 years, asking me what are the problems of this area!"), he was contemptuous of Malik. "He's a bhagauda (deserter)."

Had Malik stood as an Independent, his chances would have been brighter, said Sajid Khan of the Aam Aadmi Party. "He lost a golden opportunity to cash in on the anger against Azmi."

While Malik doesn't agree (see interview), even those inclined towards him are cautious.

"Malik's BJP connection has put voters in a dilemma," sighed Maulana Toufeeq Azmi, general secretary of the Tehreek Ulema e Ahle Sunnat, which comprises the imams of the 100-odd Bareilvi mosques in Govandi.

But Tehreek President Maulana Abdul Rahman Ziyahi was not so conflicted. "So-called secular parties have won from here all along," he pointed out.

"Why didn't they tackle the drug menace which is ravaging our youth? The person we voted in as our protector failed us. Even complaining against drug peddlers is risky here."

Significantly, Malik belongs to the Bareilvi sect, as do the majority of Muslims in this constituency. Abu Asim Azmi, on the other hand, is a Deobandi. His successive victories despite that are explained by the fact that "there was no opponent worth the name.

Interestingly, Malik's BJP baggage does not deter the Baiganwadi housewives quoted above, who are impressed with his work in the adjoining constituency, as well as his accessibility.

"As his voters, we'll have the leash in our hands. If the BJP wants to bulldoze our masjids, we will stand in front of the bulldozer and make Malik do so too." they said.

Apart from these three candidates, there are two other Muslim candidates. Mohammed Siraj of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, and Wasim Khan, son of former Congress minister Javed Khan. Both are known in the community.

In fact, said VBA activist Deepak Pawar, both the VBA and Siraj himself have between them garnered 20,000 votes in the past. "Since then, we have worked in the area," he says.

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In this array of Muslims, will the lone Hindu candidate, Suresh 'Bullet' Patil of the Shinde Sena, the official candidate of the Mahayuti, sail through?

Lok Sabha figures are revealing.

The Mahayuti's Mumbai North East candidate, the BJP's Mihir Kotecha, who had described Mankhurd as 'a drug den full of criminals' at a public meeting before the Lok Sabha polls, got just 28,101 votes from this assembly constituency. The MVA's Sanjay Dina Patil got 116, 072 votes, a lead of 87,971 votes.

Jameela Begum is well-known in the area as a long standing activist of Medha Patkar's Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, set up after waves of demolitions destroyed homes in Mumbai's slums in 2004, when then Congress CM Vilasrao Deshmukh wanted to turn Mumbai into Shanghai.

Used to getting her area's civic problems fixed by Abu Asim Azmi -- though she admitted, it took 13 long years of pressurising him -- she is also conscious of her identity as a Muslim in 'New India'.

Jameela wanted a regime change, she said, hence she and her colleagues campaigned hard for Sanjay Dina Patil in the Lok Sabha elections.

"In this assembly election, Muslims here will vote for one who works, but also one who safeguards their identity," said Jameela.

"Their existence is more important they feel, than a faulty light meter. So yes, a Muslim representative will make a difference."

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