Burnt Bakery a BJP bastion

Vadodara city constituency is better known by a landmark it finds hard to live down, the Best Bakery. It was here that 14 people were murdered, many of them burned to death during the riots of 2002.

The constituency sprawls over the bustling walled city area and has remained a BJP bastion, with large parts declared “sensitive” in police parlance. The Vadodara city seat has elected BJP state minister Bhupendra Lakhawala to the last three assemblies. The Best Bakery is located on the fringes of the constituency, not in the city area, in the run-down Dabhoi Road area. Zaheera Sheikh and her family were among the handful of Muslims who lived in the neighbourhood. Right opposite the bakery is a family that swears by the BJP. Though the families of the convicted occasionally vent their ire on BJP leaders, Vadodara-based Shri Vallabhacharya Global Educational Trust sponsors children from families of those convicted in the Bakery case.

The twists and turns in the case have meant that everyone has a stake in this election—from Rajendra Trivedi, the counsel for the convicted who is a BJP councilor and is hoping to be the party candidate from Vadodara city; Waghodia BJP MLA Madhu Srivastava, who is believed to have bribed Zaheera into turning hostile; and some lawyers, who owe their allegiance to the Sangh Parivar and who took Zaheera under their wings after she turned hostile.