Minority voices lost in Gujarats political babble

amp;149;n On Sunday,Ratilal Vala,a sanitary worker,died due to asphyxiation while he was cleaning a manhole in Gandhinagar. Not a single candidate has met Valas family in Gandhinagar,which has elected L K Advani three times in a row.

These disparate instances illustrate the marginalisation of three minority groups tribals 15 per cent,Muslims 9 per cent and Dalits 7 per cent in the political scheme of Gujarat.

While they constitute 31 per cent of the population together,the political affinities of these three groups have rarely been harnessed into a consolidated power.

Politically,the last time tribals,Muslims and Dalits ever mattered en bloc in Gujarat was in the 1980s,when Congress leader Madhavsinh Solanki formed an alliance KHAM Kshatriya,Harijan,Adivasi and Muslim. While this created a strong support base for the Congress,it stopped there.

The tribals,spread from Sabarkantha in the north to Dangs in the south,have elected four tribal MPs in reserved constituencies. Mansukh Vasava of the BJP is the only exception,and is the one tribal who continues to win from Bharuch,a general seat. Nonetheless,he does not figure prominently in the political decision -making of the BJP.

The tribals,perceived to be Congress vote bank,have so far given one Union minister and a chief minister,but this community remains the most backward in Gujarat. Kwant the states poorest taluka Dahod and Dangs are all tribal-dominated. Tribal migration is high but the NREGA fund utilisation is low. The implementation of the Forest Rights Act is also shaky,arguably because the BJP-ruled state Government is not keen to promote a Congress-generated scheme. Modis response is a Vanbandhu Kalyan Yojana.

Gujarati Muslims,meanwhile,are perceived either as victims of the 2002 riots or as perpetrators of violence as in the case of Ahmedabad blasts or Akshardham attack. Ironically,while the Congress seems to take Muslims for granted,it is the saffron party that makes a visible effort to include its minority cell leaders on all platforms occupied by the BJP bigwigs.

The latest inductee is working hard in north Gujarat to ensure Muslim support for BJP candidates. A former Additional DG of the Gujarat Police,A I Saiyed,now canvasses in Muslim-dominated villages. The Congress took us for granted,but the BJP opted for me. Look at the Congress choices,they are illiterates and goons, scoffs Saiyed. Between 1969 and now,there were more than dozen riots. No riot has taken place after 2002.

A Congress leader in the region admits that Shia communities like Dawoodi Bohras and Momins,who have a sizable population in Patan,vote for the BJP. It is like protection money to avoid trouble as they are all businessmen, he says.

But even as Muslims struggle to find acceptable political alternatives,the Dalits are wooed aggressively by the BJP and Congress. In Patan,for example,the case of a Dalit girls gang rape by her own teachers was put to rest in record time after a fast track court sentenced all of them to a life term.