Gujarat Elections 2017 | Godhra, where locals are back to basics of life even as scars remain

It's 6 PM in Godhra. A power cut has plunged the road that stretches out in front of the railway station into darkness. This is the same stretch that earned infamy around 15 years ago after a coach full of kar sevaks was burnt down in Godhra on the other side of the railway station. Fifty-nine people had died in the incident.

The rains that poured under the impact of cyclone Ockhi makes the ride on the rundown road tougher.

At a time when 'Janeudhaari Brahmin' and 'Babar bhakt' remarks are back in the political discourse in the run-up to the Assembly elections in Gujarat, Godhra is trying hard to keep pace.

The election fight this time is between two leaders with Janata Dal roots — C K Raulji and Rajendra Patel — who are contesting on BJP and Congress tickets, respectively.

Muslims are clearly inclined towards the Congress, but what can trouble the BJP more is the rebel factor from within. However, the BJP has made good inroads into the backward Bakshi Panch community, which has 90,000 votes as against the 55,000 Muslim votes in the seat.

Local Muslims are angry with five-term MLA C K Raulji, who had won the seat on Congress ticket

on two consecutive previous elections but has now shifted gear and joined the BJP.

In Muslim areas, there is a hesitance to talk about Godhra. They have other important issues to worry about.

At Nala Baharpura, where the famous washerman of Godhra, Chand Dobhi, lived, residents dread rains, as in every rainy season, their dwellings on the embankment rather than on the river course get submerged with rising water table.

Chand Mohammad, who died in October this year, had shot into limelight in 2008 when the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi sent emissaries to meet him during a meeting in Godhra, recalling how he had served him as a laundry man for a decade in 1970s, when he lived in Godhra as RSS pracharak.

While his family has yet to get the promised land, more than 250 families living in the area look for respite from the water submergence issue.

"We have to leave our homes for days and take shelter in highlands during the rainy season. No one cares about our problem. We simply don't matter," says sexagenarian Ibrahim, who has been living in the area since 1980.

At Signal Falia, where many of the convicts of the 2002 burning of the Sabarmati Express live, an interesting story has played out. Maria, the Pakistani wife of a Godhra carnage convict Irfan Pada, is fighting a court battle to continue her stay in India after the birth of their daughter Savera here in 2015. In January last year, the Gujarat High Court asked her to apply for an Indian citizenship. She is still battling the issue.

Pada was convicted in the Godhra train burning incident and sentenced to life along with 19 others. A special trial court had on March 1, 2011, convicted 31 people, awarding the death penalty to 11 of them and acquitting 63. The High Court in October this year, reduced the death sentence of the 11 convicts to 'life in prison.'

There were a total of 134 accused in the case, out of which 14 were released due to lack of evidence, five were juveniles, five died during court proceedings of over nine years, 16 are absconding, and the trial was conducted against 94 accused.

One of the 63 acquitted is Abdul Assu Mistri, who sells tea at Gondra Mohalla on Indore Baroda Highway in Godhra. A resident of Idgah Mohalla, Mistri says he has to spend nine years in jail from 2002 to 2011, which has wrecked his family. He is now worried about the future of his two sons and daughters.

Over a thousand garages are lined up in Godhra. Muslim youths are considered expert mechanics and vehicles are brought here from far away places for repair work. But there is no industry in the region and youth from both communities migrate in larger numbers in search of employment. Sitting MLA Raulji, after joining the BJP, impressed upon the party leadership the need to create jobs in the area.

The nearby Halol is an auto hub, but Godhra is not a beneficiary as locals are not employed, says Mehfooz Patel.

Vipul Soni, a swarnkar from Ahmedbad, however, says the road between Ahmedabad and Godhra was a narrow one and the connectivity improved a lot under the Modi regime in Gujarat. "Development has happened under Modi and people will still vote in Modi's name," he says confidently.

Considered a veteran from Godhra, Raulji who is from the Kshatriya community and a close confidante of former Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela, did not vote for Congress leader Ahmed Patel in the keenly fought Rajya Sabha elections this year and was subsequently expelled from the Congress for cross-voting.

After Raulji joined the BJP, party's state chief Jitu Vaghani went to town declaring it was the beginning of the annihilation of the Congress. Raulji has even if he did not get minority votes, it will not affect his chances of winning the seat.

Raulji, who first won the seat in 1990 on a Janata Dal ticket, won from Godhra on a BJP ticket in the 1991 bypoll and again in 1995.

Besides antagonising around 55,000 Muslim voters in the city, Raulji's second sojourn with the BJP has also ruffled feathers in the party.

A popular face in the area, Jaswant Parmar, who heads his party's Bakshi Panch (an OBC caste) Morcha in the state and was a key contender for the ticket, has now entered the fray as an independent.

The Bakshi Panch community, who is mostly engaged in agriculture, has around 90,000 members in the rural part of the constituency.

Rural Godhra has around 25,000 tribals and 12,000 Dalits. Patidars, Sindhis, Baniyas, Sonis (swarnkar), Rajputs, Brahmins and others put together make around 50,000, a little less than Muslims in urban centres.

Parmar, who is a surgeon by profession and runs a clinic in Godhra town, can also cut into some city votes. Parmar was associated with RSS for long and his mother is a senior leader in BJP.

Congress candidate Rajendra Patel had won the seat once in 1998 on a Janata Dal ticket, defeating Congress's Abdulrahim Khalpa, the last Muslim MLA from the region — he had won the seat for three consecutive terms in 1975, 1980 and 1985.

Patel, a leader from the Bakshi Panch community, has the image of a rabble-rouser and believes in aggressive backward politics. With a Kshatriya canidate from from BJP and a Bakshi Panch candidate from Congress, the role of independent Jaswant Parmar, who also belongs to Bakshi Panch community could turn crucial in election outcome.