’Doesn’t matter if person coming to me for help is a Khan or Joshi’

Poonam Mahajan, BJP candidate for Mumbai North Central, says she will defeat the Congress's design of dividing voters on the basis of caste and community

'Doesn't matter if person coming to me for help is a Khan or Joshi'

Poonam Mahajan says she has always been there for people in her constituency, participating in policy decisions. Pic/Sneha Kharabe

Unlike 2014, Poonam Mahajan has kept a low profile while campaigning in the Mumbai North-Central constituency, which she won for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the first time then, beating Congress nominee Priya Dutt. This time, Mahajan is banking on the claims of her good achievements, which she thinks will defeat the Congress's design of dividing voters on the basis of caste and community. Political legacy is a common factor between the duo as heirs of their illustrious fathers.

Mahajan, a trained commercial pilot, tells mid-day why she is confident of winning.

Questions are being raised over your performance in five years.
I wonder why suddenly the opposition is raising these questions. Where were they? Were they available to the people of this constituency after losing (the last election)? Forget top leaders, not even a block-level leader from the Congress asked whether I was there. But I was always there, helping people, participating in policy decisions and contributing my beat to the city's planning. If I was absent, how did I register 80% attendance in the Lok Sabha? How were so many works done in my segment?

Undercurrents in the constituency say that certain communities, especially minorities, have decided to shun you. But a significant number of Muslims are campaigning for you.
It's the Congress's old ideology of divide and rule. It always plays the communal card. But it does not matter if a person who comes up with an issue to me is a Khan or Joshi; Muslim or Hindu or Jain. The various communities here know my nature. Be it work related to the Centre and state government or BMC, I am always there to help them. I have raised questions in the Lok Sabha. I know I will win the seat again.

At 38, you are one of the youngest MPs in the city, and the daughter of an illustrious leader, who was part of the core team that made the BJP what it is today. Does comparison between you and your father bog you down?
Not at all. My father strengthened the organisation, which also gave me an opportunity to work my way up. I never weigh my capacities and failures by applying the parameters of my father's (political) career. I have spent 13 years in the organisation and continue to be part of it (as chief of the national youth wing). I believe in my father who would say nobody is bigger than the organisation which runs on a certain ideology.

The same ideology lands your party in trouble...
I don't believe that ideology lands us in trouble. Development is as much an agenda of the Narendra Modi government as Hindutva. But that does not mean we are not for other communities. We believe in a united country. I will never divide my voters by caste and community.

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