Godhra is really no different from any small town—dusty roads, tangles of electricity lines overhead and open gutters.So how does this Panchmahals town take all the current talk of development and feelgood factor? And how does it view the saffron Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is using that as an election plank?The BJP and the Congress are yet to begin meeting the masses in the town, and are instead focusing on rural voters, for the town comprises hardly 10 per cent of the voters of the constituency. But people in general seemed cold to the election drama.‘‘In the last ten years, not a single new higher secondary school has opened here. The town does not have a college, not even a polytechnic,’’ says Fr Jacob V.C., principal of the St Arnold High School. Clearly, feelgood remains only on the highways.‘‘The road here hasn’t been paved for over eight years,’’ says Yusuf Charkha, an advocate and community leader. ‘‘The BJP believes we don’t vote for them so they needn’t divert funds here.This cannot bring about feelgood.’’He isn’t impressed by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his deputy’s overtures to Muslims. ‘‘Why has it come so close to election time? Last assembly elections, BJP leaders did not even bother to call on us. This despite the fact that a good number of Muslims had voted for the BJP MP in 1999,’’ he says.BJP MP Bhupendrasinh Solanki, also its candidate, counters that he has diverted a fair share of funds to Muslim localities as well.But that doesn’t impress Muslims. And people aren’t impressed either with his boasts of the new highway from Halol to Shamlaji. Of the canal bringing Narmada water for irrigation, people say this year’s good crop was largely due to a good monsoon.They point out that business has been adversely affected in Godhra with industries in the Godhra-Halol GIDC areas seeing closures en masse. ‘‘Where are the jobs?’’ says Congress candidate, Rajendrasinh Patel.Says Mohammed Rafiq Maida, a resident of Abu Bakr colony, ‘‘I haven’t tasted sweet water in my area in all my life. We bring it in jerrycans from other parts of the city. The municipality ignores us, so the 2,000-odd families here have sunk a borewell, only to get brackish water.’’Maida, president of the Al Ameen Yuvak Mandal, exemplifies the mixed feelings of the community: ‘‘Some of us believe that the BJP, after all, is not that bad. They’ve made highways. But many believe the party is deceiving us.’’Says Mohammed Rashid, president of the Islah-e-Mashra, a social service organisation set up by former IPS officer K.P.S. Gill when he visited Godhra after the riots, ‘‘No one is talking about elections. Hardly five per cent watch television. Another 10 per cent read newspapers. If the BJP has done good work, we haven’t seen it.’’And Charkha adds ‘‘We are in the state of mind in which both Congress and the BJP seem equal evils. It’s a difficult choice. So far as feelgood is concerned it might be the case that the phones that rang inside homes, now ring on the roads too (with many having mobiles). But that is not a barometer for the masses. Highways do not come to my areas and a four-hour power cut makes life difficult even now.’’Business may be returning to normal, but the transport business, in which the Ghanchi Muslims of Godhra were involved, is in the doldrums, with diesel prices up and custom going by and large to big operators.But the Godhra carnage has still not been put aside. On Sunday the VHP again organised a trishul diksha in the town, all the while claiming it had nothing to do with the elections. A spirited bunch of NGOs countered it with a ‘‘rose diksha’’ programme. Godhra is hoping someone would notice its other problems too.
