With everybody now busy with Ramzan, Sena’s 232nd shakha wears a abandoned look. Emmanual Yogini
With the Muslim holy month of Ramzan effectively into its second fortnight, Mohammed Ali Road in south Mumbai is festooned with lights and dotted with meals stalls serving culinary delights.
Amid the bustle, the Shiv Sena’s shakha (department) in a crowded alleyway in the space wears a abandoned look. Seated in a small room in the 10×10 workplace, with white partitions and dim lights, are the department’s pramukh(chief), upah pramukh (deputy) and coordinator.
Sharif Deshmukh, 55, the shakha coordinator, says residents from the predominantly Muslim locality often throng the workplace with their woes — scarcity of water, inflated energy payments and issue in getting an appointment at a authorities hospital. But with everybody now busy with Ramzan, the footfall has dipped.
He says that is the Sena’s 232nd shakha, arrange simply 10 months again after the former Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) authorities led by Uddhav Thackeray determined in November 2021 to extend the variety of wards of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation from 227 to 236. Following the ouster of the MVA authorities in June final 12 months, the new Eknath Shinde-led Sena-BJP ruling coalition issued an ordinance in August reversing the delimitation of wards.
Mr. Deshmukh, who joined the Sena a decade in the past, says discussions are sometimes held in the department on points regarding Muslims in the State and the way forward for the Shinde authorities. The social gathering staff have been intently following the Sena’s strikes because it joined arms with the ideologically-opposed Congress and Nationalist Congress Party to kind the MVA authorities in 2019.
‘Just a vote bank’
Talking about previous relations with the group, the shakha coordinator says following the Sena’s function in the 1993 riots, the Muslim group had supported the Congress. “But the Congress on coming to power did nothing to empower or educate us. It just used us as a vote bank,” he says.
Mr. Deshmukh factors out that the Congress had shaped a number of committees to make suggestions for the betterment of Muslims, however no steps have been taken to enhance their situation regardless of experiences reminiscent of that of the Dr. Gopal Singh Committee in 1983, the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee in 2006, and the Maharashtra government-appointed Mehmood-ur-Rehman Committee in 2008. In 2014, the then Congress-NCP coalition authorities introduced 5% reservation for Muslims in training and authorities jobs. However, the Bombay High Court later put aside the choice.
Uddhav’s management
The office-bearers of the shakha say the Sena received a picture makeover after Mr. Thackeray deftly dealt with the problem posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and warranted the public of their security by commonly addressing them on social media. “He never discriminated on the grounds of religion,” Mr. Deshmukh says.
He highlights the former Chief Minister’s function in defusing the stress that prevailed in the Muslim-dominated Dongri space after a mob killed two seers and their driver on suspicion of being child-lifters in Palghar district in April 2020. He additionally remembers Mr. Thackeray’s assurance to residents protesting towards the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens in 2019 that “till I am the CM, I will not implement these policies”.
Shakha pramukh Mushtaq Popere, who had a decades-long affiliation with the Congress, says, “I was drawn to the Sena only because of Uddhav saheb’s work during the pandemic. He did not get a chance to realise his full potential, but he showed he cares for us.”
