MUMBAI: A suburb on the outskirts of Mumbai that turned populous mostly after the 1993 Mumbai riots, Mumbra is a largely a Muslim majority locality. Now, in 2017, the suburb is all set to witness one of the most interesting battles in the Thane municipal polls, with the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) set to test its strength against Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) strongman and local MLA Dr. Jitendra Awhad.
“Development is my only slogan, and I challenge anyone who wants to debate me on this. I started working for this constituency in 2009 and have never let the people of my Kalwa-Mumbra constituency down. They trusted me last time, they will extend this trust in 2017,” Dr. Awhad said while talking to The Hindu .
“I concentrated on two things: development and security. Mumbra was neglected by the Shiv Sena, and nobody cared about it. I ensured power and water supply, and widening of roads. Mumbra had the dirtiest railway station; it is now one of the best, and so is Kalwa station. I don’t blabber about development. I work, and that’s why people stand with me,” he said.
Be it his decision to support Ishrat Jahan’s family or to aggressively oppose the demolition of slums in Kalwa, the NCP leader’s actions have made him a favourite among voters in this part of the Thane Municipal Corporation.
Waris Pathan, the AIMIM’s MLA from Mumbai, on the other hand, feels that the NCP has worsened the situation in Mumbra, and only his party has the cure.
“We contested the Assembly elections there, and we realised our party has a lot of potential in the suburb. The NCP looks at Mumbra as a vote bank. This time, the picture will change,” he said.
He added that Akbaruddin Owaisi, the party’s MLA in the Telangana government, is likely to campaign in the suburb.
In the last municipal elections, the NCP won 11 of the 20 corporation seats from this constituency. In the 2014 State Assembly polls, Mr. Owaisi and his brother Asaduddin Owaisi, the president of AIMIM, held four election rallies against Dr. Awhad.
However, the NCP went on to win the seat by over 30,000 votes, at a time when the party was being defeated in other parts of the State. Not just Mumbra, but Kalwa, which has a Hindu majority, also backed the NCP.
The victory prompted the NCP MLA to say that “true secularism” is never defeated. “Me not being a Muslim has never made my voters turn their backs on me. In fact, I think they trust me more because I am a Hindu. The AIMIM’s communal politics doesn’t stand a chance in Mumbra. I stand with them [the voters] when they need me; I’m just a phone call away. If secular parties could instil this confidence in Muslims everywhere, the MIM doesn’t stand a chance in Maharashtra,” Dr. Awhad said.
