North Indians slam BJP government

Say it has ignored the community

In view of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections, the BJP has begun focusing on the north Indian community in Mumbai, which constitutes around 22 per cent of the city’s voters. However, community leaders have slammed the saffron party’s leadership at a recent meeting.

BJP’s Mumbai unit president Ashish Shelar called a meeting with north Indians, especially Uttar Pradesh and Bihar natives, on Thursday to plan a strategy for the elections, which will be held in January 2017. However, instead of fetching these leaders’ support, Mr Shelar had to face their wrath.

One of the leaders has said the community is disappointed with the state government. “We are not happy with the Devendra Fadnavis government, as we feel that we have been neglected by the BJP,” said the leader on condition of anonymity. “In the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, our community and all the Hindi-speaking voters had voted in favour of Modi and the BJP, but we’ve got nothing from the Centre and the state in the last one-and-a-half years,” the leader said.

The state has not yet formulated a slum rehabilitation policy and hawkers, too, have been neglected, he added. “Several state-run committees are yet to be formed, he said.

In Mumbai, most businesses on the streets are owned by people from UP and Bihar and, according to a source, they have been harassed by civic officials. “Most of the UP and Biharis who come from poor backgrounds stay in slums. The Modi government had promised a pukka house to everyone by 2022. The state government was expected to take an initiative in this regard, but nothing has been done so far. Slum dwellers are ready to pay the construction cost but the government isn’t willing to transfer land to their proposed housing societies,” the source said.

According to him, if the state government does not take immediate steps to resolve this issue, north Indians will not vote for the BJP en masse as they had in the previous elections.

Meanwhile, Mr Shelar maintained that the meeting was not an official one. “We met some leaders of Uttar Bharatiya, and it was an unofficial get together,” he said. However, he admitted that the party wants a share of posts in state-run committees.

Also, senior BJP leader Mohit Kumbhoj said that he had raised the issue of appointing party workers at various trusts in the meeting. “Even Siddhivinayak trust has trustees from Congress and we have to implore them for darshan. I had asked the president (Mr Shelar) to appoint party workers at such trusts to ensure party workers get darshan easily,” said Mr Kumbhoj, also president of the Diamond Jewellers’ Association.