Minority Report

The vote bank of Muslims and Dalits is crucial in shifting the balance of power in Maharashtra

- Shweta Desai

IN 1993, communal riots engulfed Bombay following the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The burning of Radhabai chawl in suburban Jogeshwari, where a Hindu family was locked inside and set ablaze, became a flashpoint that fuelled retaliatory violence against the city’s Muslims.

Mobs of ‘anguished’ Hindu youth, led by Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, ran amok— killing, looting and committing arson against Muslims and their properties— in a ‘spontaneous reaction’ to the Jogeshwari carnage. Thackeray directed his vitriol against ‘anti-national Muslims’, provoking further violence in Muslim-dominated areas, branding the Shiv Sena as the most fearsome political outfit vis-à-vis Muslims.

Thirty years on, politics has come full circle.

Following the death of Bal Thackeray, the rise of his moderate-minded son Uddhav to the party’s helm and the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—which appears to have wrested the mantle of hardcore Hindutva politics from the Sena—the equation between the regional saffron party and Muslims in Maharashtra seems to have thawed considerably.

Thackeray’s grandson, Aditya, is now campaigning for Haroon Khan, a Muslim candidate contesting the upcoming state assembly elections on a Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) ticket. Khan hails from Jogeshwari and is contesting the polls from the Versova constituency in northwest Mumbai.

Khan’s slogan, “Ekta ka raaj chalega, Hindu-Muslim saath chalega,” aims to promote communal harmony and development. Targeting both upscale Versova and Oshiwara and the slum settlements, Khan seeks support from the constituency’s significant minority voter base.