Day after AAP yatra, Ahmedabad Muslim-majority areas ‘in no hurry to shift from Cong to party we don’t know’

Sarfaraz Seth owns Bismillah Hotel in Shah-e-Alam area, located just three shops away from the AAP local office. A banner at the entrance displays the party’s symbol broom, and photos of AAP supremo and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Mann, party’s state president Gopal Italia, and its CM face Isudan Gadhvi.

The areas that AAP covered during its Saturday yatra are lined with similar restaurants as Seth’s, apart from smaller eateries, automobile service centres, cycle repair shops, and Shah-e-Alam Roza, a 15th-Century shrine.

Seth, 34, says the Congress will win again from the Dani Limda seat, which fell in the AAP yatra route. A Scheduled Caste reserved constituency, it is currently represented by Shailesh Parmar of the Congress. “The Aam Aadmi Party is a new party, and has never worked anywhere in Gujarat. We do not know how it works. He (Arvind Kejriwal) keeps repeating his guarantees of free electricity, good education, medical treatment, employment and so on, but it is Team B of the BJP,” Seth says, repeating an apprehension that many have and the Congress has been stressing upon.

Seth, who was born and brought up in the area and has been running the hotel for at least a decade, also says that they are happy with the Congress MLA. “They even got this road repaired a few months back… MLA Parmar is approachable and we are familiar with the Congress office here. Corporator (ward Dani Limda of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation) Shehzad Khan Pathan (of the Congress) is also accessible, and solves our problems… We vote for the Congress because of them.”

In contrast, voters point out, the AAP office in the area opened just three-four days back. “Inka kya bharosa… aaj hain, kal nahi hain (They can’t be trusted, they are here today, may be gone tomorrow).”

Kesar Khan, 45, who owns a battery store across the Shah-e-Alam shrine, says they have no doubt that the BJP will return to power in the state. “People can vote for whoever they want, but it is the BJP which will anyhow form the government. So, we will make sure that the Congress wins from our constituency… It will always be the BJP in the state and the Congress in Dani Limda.”
The AIMIM, which won seven seats in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation in its debut election in February 2021, did not win any of the four wards of Dani Limda, though it scored wins in the neighbouring Jamalpur.

The voters say AAP is also at a disadvantage as the candidate it has fielded from Dani Limda – retired mamlatdar Dinesh Kapadia – is an “outsider”. Kapadia’s name was announced early in September, and his photo features in AAP posters now.

At the AAP office, caretaker Hanif Noor Pawan, 60, says that while the Shah-e-Alam office opened only now, “the main office for the constituency was inaugurated two months back”.

Towards the Shah-e-Alam Darwaza stands Khala Medical Stores of Anwar Khan, 41. He did not join the AAP march, Khan says, and will vote for the Congress again, “like always”. “Anyone can hold a rally… AAP is a new party, it must be performing well in Delhi and Punjab, but their promises do not sync with our mentality. Maybe it fits well with the mindset of those states. Here, all these guarantees will not work,” says Khan, repeating that they vote for the Congress because of corporator Pathan.

Khan also says that they are determined to ensure that their vote does not get divided. “In the 2007 Assembly elections, the NCP had also contested and the fight had become the Congress versus NCP. The votes got divided, and the BJP won. We do not want to take the risk, for a party which has never worked in Gujarat.”

The Shah-e-Alam area also has a 50-year-old settlement of Bangladeshi immigrants called Chandola Talav Basti, or Bangladeshi Basti. Minarul Sheikh, 35, whose father came from Bangladesh and who was born here, says, “None of us went for the rally by Mann. There is no point. It is just Shehzad Khan Pathan who listens to us. So we vote for the Congress.”

Sheikh adds: “In all these years, not a single party has come to our basti, to woo us with their promises, or enquire about our demands. So, why should we go to any such rallies, when they do not even bother?”

All the residents here have voter identity cards. Sheikh says that, against their better judgment, they once went for a rally (protest) against the NRC and Citizenship (Amendment) Act, before the pandemic. “But people were beaten up. They did not have any proof against us… but they simply picked up a few people… So we avoid going for any sort of rally,” he says.

Ramesh Vohra, part of AAP candidate Kapadia’s team, says that the party will continue to focus on its issues of development. “We will stick to our manifesto, of reopening closed schools, improving the school infrastructure in the area, providing free electricity etc. The Congress has been winning, but it has not fulfilled anything in its manifesto, except an Ambedkar Hall. There is a severe problem of water, drainage, and roads in many chawls of Dani Limda.”

Vohra adds that they had identified two major communities in the area – “Dalits and minorities (Muslims)”. “We will work first for them.”

However, why has the party not engaged with the Muslim community on sensitive issues such as the recent Kheda flogging or the release of the Bilkis Bano case convicts? Vohra defends: “There is no point in getting into controversial issues when there are problems of development, such as electricity, water and education, across communities. So, we will make sure first that all these are provided to the people. Our job is to actualise what is written on paper (of the Constitution) and make it reach the ground.”