BMC polls: Identity fault lines, growth goals shape the battle for India’s richest civic body

Overriding bad roads, bad air, bad water, and inept housing schemes, elections to the BMC, India’s richest civic body, are being fought on identity politics.

At the peak of the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement in the 1950s, and the fight over Bombay, two warring slogans resounded in the city: ‘Mumbai aamchya hakkachi/naahi konachya baapchi,’ (Mumbai is ours by right; it’s not someone’s fiefdom) cried the sons of the soil. To which, votaries of the Mahagujarat movement who wanted Bombay to become their capital, shot back with: ‘Mumbai tumchi/bhandi ghasa aamchi’ (Mumbai is yours; (but you) clean our utensils).

Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray during a joint rally ahead of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election, in Mumbai. (PTI)

Salman Rushdie captures the fractiousness of that time