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'Politics is not Maggi noodles that can be made in two minutes'

S Husain

It took years for third-rung political parties like the Republican Party of India, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party to make inroads in Maharashtra. The BSP has been around for 15 years in Bombay now, but still isn't popular.

The Akhil Bharatiya Sena, however, is a study in contrast to such parties. Powered by underworld gangster turned politician Arun Gawli, ABS is threatening to race ahead.

Launched in 1997 by Gawli, the party boasts of a countrywide membership of over 550,000, including several retired army personnel. The party has managed to expand its base to several states. In the current election, the ABS has fielded 43 candidates for the Lok Sabha and 148 for assembly constituencies in Maharashtra.

Not just contented with battling in their home state, the ABS has also spread to several states in northern and southern India. Even a literate state like Kerala has Gawli representatives contesting. Three candidates are fighting for Lok Sabha seats from Kerala, two from Madhya Pradesh, two from Rajasthan, three from Uttar Pradesh, and one each from Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi!

Among the ABS candidates in Maharashtra is Gawli himself. He contests from Khed while his wife Asha is fighting to the assembly from Khed Alandi.

Asha, incidentally, is the ABS all-India general secretary, while retired lieutenant colonel Ashok Mhatre is its Maharashtra general secretary.

Mhatre is not the only defence personnel associated with the party. It boasts of several, including retired colonel Ajay Chitnis, who is contesting for the assembly from Pune and retired squadron leader A Vajpayee, who is fighting from Uttar Pradesh.

"The reason for so many ex-armymen and reputed people joining the party is its courage to take on the high and mighty against any injustice," claims Mhatre.

The party has managed to field 16 candidates in the 34 assembly constituencies of Bombay. The number could have been more, but for the killing of several party members including founder-president Jitendra Dabholkar in August 1997.

Some of the candidates from Bombay happen to be part of Gawli's think tank. Advocate Mahendra Bagwe from Byculla is from the inner coterie. Gawli has also fielded three women candidates including Nalini Jagtap, Sunita Pai and Deepali Parab from Bombay. Ravindra Girkar is the only Gawli candidate who has criminal offences of rioting and assault against him.

The candidate confident of winning the election is Lt Col. Mhatre, from the Lalbaug constituency. Lalbaug is likely to witness a triangular fight between the Shiv Sena, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party.

"The tough contest between the trio will divide their votes and I will benefit from the division," Mhatre boasts.

This election is the party's second brush with politics. They had fledged their muscles in the last parliamentary poll, fielding 12 candidates including the notorious gangster and trusted-aide of Gawli, Raju Philips. The results, however, were embarrassing -- all the Gawli candidates forfeited their deposits.

Gawli, in fact, had been trying to contest the election since 1994, when he realised that politics is the best resort for him to not only save himself from the long arm of law, but also to protect against a dog's death.

"I joined politics to save myself from police encounter," Gawli had told this reporter while in Harsul Jail, Aurangabad. In the 1994 election Gawli had managed to garner 12,000 votes from the Byculla constituency.

Mhatre says that the ABS was systematically subdued by the Shiv Sena government. "Otherwise we had a fair chance to make it in the polls."

Gawli was arrested along with 40 of his men last month on charges of assault on police. Currently, the don and his acolytes are cooling their heels in the Yerwada Central Jail.

"Gawli has been imprisoned deliberately so that he should not campaign in Khed. He will be released only on September 18 much after the election. All this is being done at the behest of the remote-control (Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray)," Mhatre alleged.

"So what if we lose this election? We will keep trying. Politics is not Maggi noodles that can be made in two minutes. We will succeed someday. After all, weren't they (the Sena) trying since 1979 before they made it in 1994?" asks an ABS official.

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