Ayesha Khan
Vyara (Gujarat) : Luhar’s sixth floor apartment in Vyara is strewn with magazines dating back to 2002, complete with pictures of him waving a trishul. But that’s about the only reminder he has kept of his past. Luhar now swears by Saheb — Mandvi Congress MP Tushar Chaudhary — and has even tied the Congress sash on his stuffed tiger toy. He says he’s not surprised by the rebellion in the BJP ranks which has made the party somewhat nervous ahead of the Assembly polls.
A high school dropout who joined the Bajrang Dal, Luhar came to the Parivar’s notice when he led from the front in opposing the missionaries in the Dangs. He rose up the ranks quickly to become the Bajrang Dal chief of Surat. During the Vaghela government’s rule in the late Nineties, he was jailed under the PASA (Prevention of Anti-Social Activities) Act.
But Luhar gave up on the Parivar long before the rebellion against Modi by a section of the BJP. He fell out in 2003-2004 and that too for a purely apolitical reason — it was a proposal by BJP leaders and the state government to raze a slum near the Vyara Market Yard for a college that raised his hackles.
"There are some 1000 families there, quite a few of them Muslims, who have been living there for more than fifty years. Just just because you don’t want Muslims and and you want to build a college, you cannot end up harming the majority who are Hindus" says Luhar.
Told by leaders of the BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal to step back, Luhar moved the High Court, seeking a stay on the demolition of the slum. The stay granted, he began to move away from the Parivar. "It came as a shock to me. Religion is important, but so are empty stomachs and a roof over the head. I had moved across Dangs as a Bajrang Dal activist where the tribals live in pitiable condition. They confronted us with problems of livelihood, not religion."
Politically active, Luhar became close to late chief minister Amarsinh Chaudhary’s son Tushar who became the Mandvi Congress MP in 2004.
Vijay Patel, BJP Surat district president, tries to play down the defection. "It must have been more a personal reason and it happened some two-three years ago. The likes of him don’t matter. We have development to show in the tribal belt during Modiji’s rule," says Patel. Incidentally, Vyara is one Assembly seat that the BJP has never won.
Luhar and his boys now work for the Congress. "We have all been used, particularly the Bajrang Dal boys. We executed the ideas, resorted to violence but the Parivar and BJP bigwigs left us nowhere. It takes a lot of energy to hate someone forever, especially when one is hungry and poor."
Source : indianexpress.com
