Antulay: Last Muslim CM in Maharashtra?

Antulay: Last Muslim CM in Maharashtra?

Reporters Name | CAMIL PARKHE | Monday, 8 December 2014 AT 08:08 PM IST

    

Blog, Camil Parkhe, Abdul Rehman Antulay, Maharashtra, obituary, Last Muslim CM

For many people in Maharashtra who are now in the late 30s or 40s, the name of Abdul Rehman Antulay may immediately remind the cement scandal to which he was allegedly linked with. Antulay had to relinquish the chief minister's post due to this scandal. Although the Supreme Court later acquitted him  of the charges, Antulay had to pay heavy political price for this scandal as he was moved away from Maharashtra and rehabilitated in national politics. Elected to the Rajya Sabha, he also held the union minister's post two terms.

Antulay was one of the few prominent Muslim faces having pan-Maharashtra appeal and popularity among cross sections of society. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi surprised the powerful Maratha lobby in Maharashtra by appointing him as the state chief minister in 1980. During his short stint as the chief minister, Antulay earned the image as a non-nonsense politician, a leader who could take fast decisions and who had total control over the bureaucracy, some of the traits which he shared with S B Chavan, another politician hand-picked by Indira Gandhi to lead Maharashtra. Having full command over the party organisation, Indira Gandhi then could afford to appoint a leader of her choice – and too belonging to a minority community-  to head Maharashtra government. Indira Gandhi had earlier also selected Abdul Ghafoor as the chief minister of Bihar in 1973.

Antulay shifted fom his Colaba (Raigad) Lok Sabha seat where he was defeated in 2004 to contest from Aurangabad – a seat having a sizable Muslim electorates. But his presence in the election arena had helped the rival parties to polarise votes and Antulay was defeated here too. After this, even the Congress and NCP have been wary of fielding a Muslim or other minor candidates as it now amounts to giving a cakewalk to rival parties, barring the minority-dominated seats like Malegaon and Bhiwandi.

With the demise of Antulay, Muslims in Maharashtra and to some extent in India, have lost a leader to whom they could relate to and bank on representing their interests.

Vasantaro Naik, a member of the Banjara tribe, was chief minister of Maharashtra for a record 11 years. But that was four decades back.  As the political things stand today, it is unlikely that a Muslim or any minority leader  will occupy the chief minister's seat in Maharashtra or any other state in the country in the near future. Presently, there is no minority leader belonging to any mainstream political party who can truly claim to be mass leader or at least a minority leader having well connect to his/ her community. This is bad for the secular fabric of the nation. In the absence of such leadership and political parties ignoring minorities due to vote bank politics constrains, communal forces may be able to create their base among these communities. It is in the interest of the nation that all mainstream political parties give equal representation to all sections of communities, be it in civic bodies, at state or national levels. Antulay should not be the last  Muslim or  minority leader to be the chief minister of  a state in the country. 

Christmas is dual feast for City Church in Pune

Christmas is dual feast for City Church


http://www.sakaaltimes.com/SakaalTimesBeta/20101219/5127886616320126673.htm
CAMIL PARKHE
Sunday, December 19, 2010 AT 06:12 PM (IST)
Tags: City Church, Christmas 2010
PUNE: This Christmas will be of an added significance for the City Church, the mother of all churches in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. It was on Christmas feast exactly 218 years ago that the Catholics in Pune had celebrated the first mass on a land gifted by Sawai Madhavrao Peshwa in appreciation of their services in the Maratha army.
It was on this land that the Church of our Lady of Immaculate Conception, popularly known as the City Church, stands today. This first church in Maharashtra (excluding the churches in Mumbai and Thane district) has been the mother of various Catholic churches which have come up in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad during the last two decades.
Today there are altogether 22 Catholic churches in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
The British, who took over power in Pune, gifted the adjoining three acres and 14 gunthas land to the church whose population has increased by then. A new church was built on this land in 1852. Exactly a century later, the church’s premises was extended to cater its parishioners whose strength by then had risen to 7,000.
Although the oldest church in the city, the number of parishioners of the City Church has been shrinking during the past few decades. This is because a large number of parishioners during this period have sold their houses in the local area and purchased more spacious houses in Fatimanagar and neighbouring areas, the church’s parish priest, Fr George D’Souza, told Sakàl Times.
As a result now, St Patrick’s Cathedral, the city’s second oldest church built in 1850, has the largest Catholic population of over 1200 families. Now there are around 300 Catholic families in City Church’s jurisdiction.
The church has derived its name ‘City Church’ as it stood at one of the entrances of Pune, the Quarter Gate, which had existed there.