Dharavi’s Ward 185, battleground of redevelopment concerns, dominates civic poll campaign

Dharavi's Ward 185 is a key electoral battleground in Mumbai, with candidates addressing resident concerns over redevelopment and in-situ rehabilitation.

MUMBAI: With an electorate of around 2,35,000 voters in its 1.5-million population spread across wards 183 to 189, Dharavi remains one of Mumbai’s most politically significant constituencies. Dominating the electoral battle this time is the 40,000-voter-strong Ward 185, where all three mainstream parties are locked in a direct contest. According to internal party surveys, the ward’s electorate comprises about 26% South Indian voters, 23% Marathi voters, 16% North Indian and Muslim voters, and 15% Gujarati voters.

Dharavi’s Ward 185, battleground of redevelopment concerns, dominates civic poll campaign

Traditionally a Congress stronghold, Ward 185 was wrested by T M Jagdish of the undivided Shiv Sena in the 2017 civic polls, while the BJP has never managed to register a win here. The ward encompasses Kumbharwada, the over-150-year-old potters’ colony, where residents are demanding that they be excluded from the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP) and rehabilitated in situ. Latching on to the potters’ demand, candidates across party lines have been reassuring them that they will make it happen.

On Tuesday, voters were actively courted by all the major parties in the fray. Veteran corporator Ravi Raja, who was the former leader of the opposition in the BMC, was seen going from door to door, greeting residents with a ‘Vanakkam’ in a predominantly Tamil neighbourhood. A five-time corporator from F North ward in Sion, Raja is not a stranger to Dharavi voters, many of whom are familiar with his name due to his vocal presence in the BMC.

The veteran politician said that a delegation from Kumbharwada had met him and spoken about their concern. “The DRP is for slums, but they have big houses and are more concerned with the pottery industry,” he said. “I have assured them that we will try to carve out 12.5 acres from the DRP and see how best they can be rehabilitated there.”

Raja launched a sharp attack on the Congress, Eknath Gaikwad and his daughter Varsha who have dominated Dharavi politics for decades, both as MLA and MP. “The Gaikwad family has ruined this area for 52 years,” he said. “From 1999 to 2014, when the Congress was in power, they stopped the DRP tender. They never wanted Dharavi to redevelop because they wanted people to languish in slums. The people of Dharavi will take a conscious decision to opt for the BJP and make history in all wards.”

While Raja claimed that the BJP would not “displace even one tenant”, the scepticism and deep anxiety among residents remain, even those who have been promised rehab in situ. Sheshova Shekhar, who has lived in the Rajiv Gandhi Nagar slum in the Kunchikorve area for 70 years, said, “Eleven of us live in a 150-sq-ft tenement with a loft. We will be rehabilitated nearby, but what’s the point of giving us one room? Here we can add floors, but we can’t do that in a new home.”

Vanita Kanjiwala, 55, a Kumbharwada resident, said she was hopeful about in-situ rehabilitation. “We will vote for the BJP,” she said. “The Congress did nothing for us. They widen roads and clean nallahs only during elections. We have been promised in-situ rehab and are confident the ruling dispensation will do something for us.”

Kumbharwada comprises four wadis, each with around 200 families engaged in the pottery business. Residents say they have been paying an annual vacant land tax (VLT) of ₹5 to the BMC for nearly 50 years, but after the DRP was announced, they were verbally informed that the VLT had been cancelled. Raja said that issues related to this also needed to be addressed.

Former Sena (UBT) corporator of ward 185 T M Jagdish said the DRP was the dominant issue during his campaign in Kumbharwada on Tuesday afternoon. “People were told that Adani would not rehabilitate them in Dharavi,” he said, adding that civic services had suffered in the area, since he had got no funds from the BMC for five years. “But when I was a corporator, there was severe waterlogging in the Dharavi transit camp for a month,” he said. “I installed big drainage lines and desilted them. I lit up every lane and installed toilets.”

Congress candidate Kamlesh Chitroda, who belongs to the Kumbharwada community, said the concerns were specific and unresolved. “The main issue in my community is whether basic requirements like a designated place for pottery will be provided in the DRP and whether they will be rehabilitated in the same area,” he said.

Paul Rapheal, the AAP candidate, said that the DRP was on the party’s priority list and it would demand in-situ rehabilitation for everyone. “We will also focus on municipal schools,” he said.

Congress MP Varsha Gaikwad’s husband Raju Godse said the opposition’s objections to the DRP lay in the manner the project was pushed through. “Without considering stakeholders, they proceeded with the proposal and invited tenders,” he said. “Kumbharwada people have their businesses and residences there. They have four wadis with kilns, and it’s a continuous chain of people involved in pottery.”

Godse added that Dharavi could not be treated as an ordinary slum. “Dharavi is a business hub amounting to ₹100 crore in exports. It has leather, farsan, pottery, rakhi and chikki-making industries involving Tamilians and people from Uttar Pradesh. But there is no policy for commercial structures in the DRP.”