As reported in Gulfnews.com by Pamela Raghunath, on October 08, 2009
Delimitation of constituencies and squabbles over seats among political parties have brought new challenges to candidates contesting in the Maharashtra assembly elections.
Nationalist Congress Party’s Labour Minister Nawab Malek’s Kurla constituency became a reserved seat for the scheduled caste. He then hoped to stand for elections from the neighbouring Kalina seat. However, that too was taken away and given to Congress’s Kripashankar Singh.
Now, Malek is contesting from Anushaktinagar constituency in Trombay where a whole new set of challenges stand before him.
“From a compact constituency in Kurla, I have to now cover a sprawling area stretching across 16km with varied kind of issues affecting the residents who comprise slum dwellers and well-to-do as well as those living in residential complexes of industries, telecom, oil companies and central government,” he told Gulf News.
With more than 35 years in politics, Malek confidently says his “social work” has known no boundaries. That is why he has been able to quickly immerse into his election campaign with a fresh vigour to listen to people’s problems.
“For more than 20 years, this area has been ignored and neglected. Except for a shabbily-run civic hospital, medical facilities are negligible for the middle class. The slum dwellers in Mankhurd and Govandi suffer from water shortage and lack of sewage facilities.”
He goes on to say how the Deonar abattoir, the only one for Mumbai, is in a terrible shape and the area’s connectivity to South Mumbai and western suburbs is so poor that nearly an hour or two is spent on commuting.
Malek, however, is resolved to make life better for voters, if they chose him.
