In Mumbai, vegetarian housing societies continue to turn away anyone suspected of eating meat. The vegetarian societies — mostly wealthy Jains, Gujaratis and Rajasthanis — are BJP votebanks. The traditionally non-vegetarian Sena votebank is lower-middle-class Maharashtrian.The dilemma of course is that both parties are allies. So the issue, highlighted by The Indian Express eight days ago, is at status quo. Ask Nishant Devale who was turned away by one society in Malabar Hill area. ‘‘I wanted a resale flat in this society that had advertised,’’ Devale said. ‘‘Nowhere did they say it was for vegetarians. But they refused to even show me the flat.’’At the fish market in Parel, 500 metres from a vegetarian housing society coming up, fishmongers are finding it hard to contact Shiv Sena MLA Dagdu Sapkal and vibhag pramukh Ajay Chaudhari. The sticky issue is something even members of Mumbai Grahak Panchayat can’t agree on. While panchayat president Shirish Deshpande has threatened to take such societies to court, Vanmala Manjure, a former judge who heads the Consumer Guidance Cell of the panchayat, disagrees. ‘‘We can only take up issues pertaining to deficiency in services or products,’’ said Manjure. ‘‘Even if complaints are filed, they can’t be taken up by us.’’ On the saffron front, there’s been a patch up. Within hours of Shiv Sena south Mumbai vibhag pramukh Bala Kalshekar storming into vegetarian citadels with a group of Sainiks last week, Mumbai unit president of BJP, Vinod Tawade, got in touch with Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray and asked him to drop the issue. Uddhav said the societies have apologised so there’s no need to take the matter further.
