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The new Delhi-Mumbai expressway is among the most modern and expansive infrastructure projects in India. As one speeds on the expressway after crossing the suburban mass of Gurugram, it is very easy to miss (the crime republic of) Mewat which the expressway neatly bisects into two. In any other election in Rajasthan, one need not have left the highway to enter into the part of Mewat which lies in Bharatpur district of the state. However, the 2023 elections gave good reason to this reporter to visit Ghatmeeka village under Kaman assembly constituency in Rajasthan.
Ghatmeeka made national headlines when two young men from this village, Nasir and Junaid were found burnt to death, allegedly by cow vigilantes earlier this year. It is a case (one of the accused is Monu Manesar) which is suspected to have been one of the factors behind the riots Nuh (in Mewat) witnessed in August.
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The contrast between Ghatmeeka and the expressway that is less than a few kilometers away from the village could not have been bigger. Roads are non-existent in this village and there is widespread poverty unlike the opulence which the expressway symbolises. The only commonality is that there is no dearth of heavy vehicle traffic in Ghatmeeka as well. There is a steady flow of large trucks loaded with stones from the Aravallis — most of the mining is likely illegal .
The mining lobby pretty much runs a parallel government in this area. They make sure that the roads are good enough for the trucks to pass. They even sprinkle water on the roads to control dust, without which, Khurshid, a villager HT spoke to says, even cooking food would be impossible. But there is also an ugly side to the mining activity. People die in accidents and the industry is yet another tributary for crime.
Ghatmeeka’s local tragedy with communal overtones was followed by a larger one when communal clashes erupted in Mewat in August this year. It’s easy to find the victims of the latter incident. Dilshad, who is from Punhana — it lies in Haryana and is part of Mewat — used to run a hotel near Manesar which was burnt down by a mob during the contiguous violence which erupted in the region around larger Gurugram after the first clash. He decided against going back and has set up a new place in the relatively safe (he says) Ghatmeeka which is a Muslim majority village. The BJP coming to power in Rajasthan as well (it is in power in Haryana) will be bad news for Muslims, Khurshid and Dilshad claimed.
But there is a twist in the tale. The views of Ghatmeeka’s Muslim voters on the BJP is not translating into a consolidation behind the Congress party.
First a bit of background. The Congress’s sitting MLA from Kaman, Zahida Khan won this constituency with a margin of more than 20% of the votes polled in 2018. She is also a minister of state in the Rajasthan government and considered close to chief minister Ashok Gehlot. Khan comes from an old political family and has been contesting in Kaman since 2008. She won the elections in 2008, albeit with a smaller margin than in 2018, but lost in 2013. In 2003 and 2013, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won this AC, but the victory margin was always less than 5%.
What were the factors behind Khan’s big victory in 2018? One of them seems to be a complete consolidation of Muslim voters, who are considered to be significant if not in outright majority. The other two Muslim candidates in the fray polled just 1.1% of the total votes polled, while Khan had a vote share of 58.4%.
This might not be the case in 2023. In Ghatmeeka and other Muslim majority villages until Jurhera, a small sub-town in Kaman AC, Muslim voters seem to be rooting for an independent candidate Mukhtyar Ahmad who has prefixed CA before his name to highlight his chartered accountant degree. We have nothing against Ashok Gehlot or the Congress party, but our MLA has done nothing for us, is the common refrain among Muslim voters. In fact, it were Khurshid and Dilshad in Ghatmeeka who nudged this reporter to follow Ahmad’s campaign. If he wins, he will support the Congress government, they told HT.
Lest there is any confusion, Ahmad does not represent some plebian rebellion against a family of old political elites. His declared assets are worth ₹3.5 crore and his annual income in 2022-23 was almost a crore. His campaign convoy in Jurhera had a lot of expensive cars including a Volvo. The financial muscle also means that he is not going to be a pushover.
Zahida’s proximity to the chief minister was perhaps a bigger factor in her getting the ticket than an objective assessment of her popularity. Herein lies a crisis which might cost the Congress this time in Rajasthan. The factionalism in the party has led to a lot of tickets being distributed to candidates who should have been dropped because of local anti-incumbency. In Kaman’s case, this has compromised the most important anti-BJP plank for the Congress, a consolidation of Muslim votes.
The BJP is not complaining. Balraj Saini, who runs a sweet shop near the Jurhera police station and has been a traditional BJP voter sees the split in Muslim votes as a good opportunity for the BJP. Past election results from Jurhera suggest that Saini might not be very far off the mark. Unless of course, the local resentment against Zahida is so strong that she is rendered completely irrelevant in these elections.
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