His poll, their toll

Says Mohsin Qadri, a lawyer, 8216;8216;Nothing better for the BJP. With over a lakh Muslims in relief camps and the rest scared to come out of their houses, the polls will be only for the BJP.8217;8217;

8216;8216;With the talk of elections, the riots are coming to a logical conclusion. Tell me, why can8217;t the government stop the incidents even today? They want to capitalise on all this,8217;8217; says U.H. Malek, an electrical contractor. 8216;8216;Modi or Chaudhary, I am not interested in them. Let me at least go home, give me police security and then talk of my vote,8217;8217; says Ashok Chhanabhai.

KANKARIA: 8216;8216;You are from an English paper, so you8217;re probably secular. Right?8217;8217; taunts Rajnikant Vaghela, one of the two who run the Hindu relief camp in Kankaria. 8216;8216;Secular8217;8217;, in this town, now means pro-Muslim and anti-Hindu.

8216;8216;If Muslims want to stay in this country, they should not do a Godhra. They needed a tough lesson. Why do they celebrate when Pakistan wins a cricket match? Why do they salute Osama bin Laden? Yes, we have to vote for the BJP,8217;8217; screams Premal Gandhi.

Moosabhai Mohammed Memon, a truck driver, has a reply:8216;8216;Those responsible for Godhra should be hanged. But why punish and kill the innocents? And now they want elections in which Muslims can8217;t participate. Are we all ISI agents? Are all Muslims criminals?8217;8217;

CHOTILA: Hakubhai Thakkar and Pratap Chauhan run a restaurant on the Ahmedabad-Rajkot highway. 8216;8216;Nobody is interested in elections. We want peace, we want drinking water, we want our business to normalise. BJP or the Congress, Modi or whoever, they all have a vested interest in these riots and the elections,8217;8217; says Thakkar. Chauhan agrees.

Zulekhabegum Mohammed Ayub sums up the sentiment among the minorities: 8216;8216;What election? We have always voted, but what have we got? I can8217;t even go home, I don8217;t know if I ever will. Leaders come and go, tasalli deke chale jate hai8230;.shanti hoti nahi hai they just console us and go away; there is no sign of peace.8217;8217;

RAJKOT had never heard of a communal riot till Narendra Modi walked into it as its MLA, trampling over the political wishes of Keshubhai Patel. This is not to say that Modi engineered the disturbances here, only that some locals find it too much of a coincidence.

The docile, God-fearing Bohra business community suddenly finds itself at the crossroads after 120 of their establishments were attacked after the riots. President of the local chamber of commerce and Bohra leader Akbar Ali Bharmal is still reeling under Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee8217;s exhortation to Muslims 8216;8216;to behave themselves.8217;8217;

8216;8216;I feel terribly lonely and vulnerable. I never knew the Bohras would have to pay a price for their unflinching loyalty towards India. We never went to Pakistan and those of us in Pakistan never came to India, we remained loyal to the land where we belonged. We dissolved with the mainstream like sugar in milk. Today, we are asked to prove our nationalism8217;8217;, says Ali. 8216;8216;We have stopped wondering why. For the more you think, the more pain you get. They may target us for being a good citizen. But we wish to remain so.8217;8217;

What about elections? 8216;8216;What can we say to that?8217;8217;

A few from the majority community in this RSS stronghold share the Bohras8217; pain. 8216;8216;Yes, these disturbances are new to Rajkot. I am very unhappy about it. But we must understand it is the result of Godhra,8217;8217; declares Shyamsinh Rajput, an auto driver.

8216;8216;I am in no mood for an election in this sweltering heat. Water is what I want,8217;8217; says Yogesh Rajput, a local trader. In the next breath, he adds, 8216;8216;We strongly feel the Hindus have suffered for many years and that Muslims need to be taught a lesson for being loyal to Pakistan while staying in our country.8217;8217;

Says Nilesh Chandarana, 8216;8216;No riots occurred here. Riots and elections are better left to those in Ahmedabad. We are more concerned about water and our daily business, which has not been affected so far.8217;8217; But that doesn8217;t mean he is not angry over the Godhra train killings. 8216;8216;Others were killed later, but that was because of Godhra,8217;8217; he justifies.

The apparent soft spot for the BJP, however, does not mean that the BJP will snatch the Wankaner seat from the Congress. The dominant Koli community will decide who wins, as usual.

Wankaner8217;s Congress MLA Khursheed Peerzada points out that the Muslim votes are almost equal to the Kolis. Since the Muslims will largely vote for the Congress 8216;8216;the Kolis will finally determine the outcome,8217;8217; says Peerzada.

8216;8216;We can win if the Koli sub-castes get united,8217;8217; says Kalpendu Mehta, the son of BJP Rajya Sabha MP Lalit Mehta. 8216;8216;I cannot say for sure if Hindutva will unite them.8217;8217;

In Saurashtra, which has the maximum representation in the state assembly, the people are more interested in an end to their drinking water problems than polls. 8216;8216;Talk of water, not of elections. Leave elections to Gujarat, this is Saurashtra. We get supply once in three days. The problem is getting worse with the summer heat,8217;8217; says Bharatsinh Jadeja.

His concern is not misplaced, with as many as 19 villages out of 27 in the Wankaner taluka getting water only through tankers. Ditto in Jamnagar or for that matter any other district of Saurashtra.

8216;8216;YES, I know they talk about elections now. This means the riots will continue, as if what has happened already is not enough. I am worried all this will further delay my earthquake compensation,8217;8217; says Vasant Mehta, quake small-scale spectacle manufacturing unit was destroyed in the quake.

8216;8216;With elections coming, I don8217;t think I will ever get any aid for my sweet shop. Even otherwise, it is the riot-hit who are at the forefront now, not the quake-affected,8217;8217;says Anil Makwana.

Mahesh Mehta is a grocer in Soni Bazaar in Morbi. The paltry Rs 6,000 he has received in quake aid has given him some sense of humour. He grins, 8216;8216;Someday, all of us will need some rehabilitation. We have SSP-affected people, quake-affected people and riot-affected people in Gujarat.8217;8217;

In Morbi, the Hindus say Godhra was 8216;8216;cruel8217;8217; and the Muslims wonder why innocent people had to pay the price. That is the response to a direct question. If you don8217;t ask, they will tell you that they get drinking water every alternate day and that too at low pressure. They will tell you they are still waiting for the compensation they are supposed to get for the damage they suffered during last year8217;s earthquake.

There is a definite sympathy for the Hindutva cause, but no promise for a vote. 8216;8216;In my constituency or even in Saurashtra, no rhetoric works. This is not Ahmedabad, here people demand your work report.

8220;If my wife falls sick and if the neighbour8217;s wife has to be hospitalised, I have to attend to the latter first. There has always been a pro-BJP atmosphere in Morbi, and the Hindutva card can8217;t add beyond one or two per cent to this,8217;8217; says Kanti Amrutia, BJP MLA from Morbi.