They are outspoken and have their agenda. And, a way of presenting it, too. All of them have hit the headlines as uncommon representatives of the people.
Ravindra V. Gaikwad of the Shiv Sena shocked his constituents and the country when he slapped an Air India employee in late March. He told the media that he had hit the staffer 25 times with his slipper. Six airlines put him on their no-fly lists. The Lok Sabha member, from Osmanabad in drought-hit Marathwada, was initially unrepentant. His party interrupted Parliament and threatened to ground all outbound flights from Mumbai.
Eventually, Gaikwad wrote to Ashok Gajapati Raju, Union minister for civil aviation, regretting “the unfortunate incident that took place on March 23, 2017, in the Air India Flight No. AI-852, seat no. 1F”. Gaikwad’s grouse was that he had been given a business class boarding pass, but was seated in economy class.
“I was told the flight doesn’t have a business class,” he told THE WEEK. “Why was I then given a business class boarding pass? The officer was very rude when I tried to question him. If a common man had slapped the officer for the same issue, the same media would have praised him.” He said the whole controversy got media attention just because he was from the Shiv Sena.
He’s got company. The Shiv Sena’s Rajan Vichare, MP from Thane, had kicked up a ruckus over the bad food in Maharashtra Sadan, Delhi. The protest made headlines because he allegedly forced a Muslim staffer, who was fasting during Ramzan, to eat chapati. The staffer said Vichare abused and threatened everyone on duty.
Slap and strip: Gaikwad’s ‘Slapgate’ put him on the no-fly list of six airlines | PTI
Congress spokesperson Ratnakar Mahajan said, “This practice of doing such stunts to grab media attention started with Jambuwantrao Dhote throwing a paperweight at the speaker of the assembly in the 1970s. He was expelled, but the incident made him so popular that he won the bypolls by a far bigger margin.”
As an independent legislator from Achalpur in Amravati district, Omprakash ‘Bacchu’ Kadu does not get much floor time, and he does not have a party to amplify his voice. So he resorts to out-of-the-box tactics to make himself heard in the assembly and outside. Dharmendra Jore, senior journalist, said, “I know him since he was in Class 9. He had launched a massive protest against prostitution and tamasha that happened on the sidelines of the Bahiram festival in Amravati.”
He has been winning since 2004, and the margin has been climbing steadily. “I don’t want to lose my independence by joining any party,” he said. “I work far more than any other MLA. I will not dilute my commitment to farmers and the disabled.”
Bacchu’s wedding, too, was different. He married Nayana, a professor, by exchanging the national flag, and the couple then donated 100 tricycles to the differently abled. He asked, “Why feed people who are not hungry? Helping the poor and handicapped is a cause close to my heart.”
Anil Kadam threatened to strip a lady at a toll booth | Ajaj Shaikh
Bacchu lost the 1999 assembly polls to Vasudha Deshmukh of the Congress by just 1,300 votes. But, he continued fighting for farmers. “The government was not responding to farmers’ issues, despite Bacchu raising it frequently. So, he let a python loose in Deshmukh’s house to highlight government lethargy,” said Avinash Dudhe, senior journalist from Amravati.
Snakes seem to be a pet weapon of his. Hospitals in the region did not stock anti-venom despite growing snakebite cases. The frequent power failures during summer nights caused snakebite cases to spike. An exasperated Bacchu dumped snakes in the primary health centre and the electricity office. The issues got solved in a jiffy.
He also took out a torchlight rally at night to protest regular, 16-hour load shedding. Thousands participated in the rally. Bachhu’s Prahar Yuvashakti Sanghatana (PYS), a combative youth organisation, is the backbone of his protests.
Demanding a hike in minimum support prices and to highlight rising farmer suicides, Bacchu and 50 supporters got themselves buried to their necks on the premises of the Chandur Bazar agricultural produce market committee. R.R. Patil, the then home minister, had to personally intervene to break the face-off. When it was said that farmer suicides were on the rise because of their alcoholism, Bacchu shot back, “Then, why doesn’t Hema Malini commit suicide?”
In 2009, Bacchu & Co climbed atop a huge water tank and stayed there for 24 hours. They came down only when the government assured that the cabinet would discuss farmer suicides. He pulled the stunt in Nagpur, the state’s winter capital, when the assembly was in session. And, he is not all stunts. PYS has helped over 30,000 people with disability and donates 500 bottles of blood every year.
House action: Ram Kadam was censured twice for manhandling people in the assembly premises.
Mahajan said, “Bacchu picks up issues close to people’s hearts. His protests grab media attention, but solutions to the larger problem are not found.” Bacchu has had his share of run-ins with the bureaucracy. In March 2016, he slapped an official in the secretariat, leading to all employees there capping their pens and striking. “I don’t care as long as I am honest to my cause. I practise Gandhigiri first. And, if it doesn’t work, Bhagat Singh guides me,” Bacchu said.
While Bacchu does it for the people, Ram Kadam’s famous fight was for Marathi, in the assembly. Now a BJP legislator from Ghatkopar, Kadam was then a Maharashtra Navanirman Sena MLA. The first session of the assembly in 2009 saw Kadam slapping the Samajwadi Party’s Abu Asim Azmi for taking the oath in Hindi. “Why could not he take oath in Marathi, after having lived in Maharashtra for over two decades? That, too, when both languages are written in Devanagari script,” Kadam had asked then. He, and four other MLAs from the MNS, were suspended from the house for a year.
But, it seems he did not get the message. In March 2013, he thrashed a police officer on the assembly premises. During the budget session, Kshitij Thakur, independent MLA from Virar, moved for breach of privilege. He said Pravin Suryavanshi, an assistant police inspector, had stopped Thakur’s car at the Bandra-Worli Sea Link for alleged speeding and had been rude with him.
While the debate was on, Thakur saw Suryavanshi seated in the visitor’s gallery and passed the word to Kadam, the Shiv Sena’s Rajan Salvi and independent Pradip Jaiswal. They rushed out and thrashed Suryavanshi. Videos of the attack went viral and the speaker had to set up an inquiry.
“Raj Thackeray saheb was so angry with Kadam’s act that he literally fired me,” said Bala Nandgaonkar, then leader of the MNS legislative party. “It was extremely wrong on the part of law-makers to take the law into their own hands.”
Lawmakers taking the law into their own hands is, in fact, a common occurrence. In August 2013, the Shiv Sena’s Anil Kadam, two-time MLA from Niphad, was travelling in a friend’s car at night on the newly built Mumbai-Agra National Highway (NH 3). At the Pimpalgaon toll plaza, which is staffed entirely by women, the car was stopped. As it was an unmarked car, the lady in the booth asked Anil Kadam to pay the toll. He refused saying that he was an MLA. The lady allegedly asked for his identity card. Anil Kadam stepped out of the car, abused the woman and threatened to strip her in public. Regional channels aired the CCTV footage from the plaza. He was charged with molestation; he eventually surrendered and secured bail.
Girish Mahajan carried a gun to a special school | Shailendra Sonawane
“This act by Anil Kadam is neither his first one nor is this the last,” said Dilip S. Bankar, former MLA from Niphad. “He has always been in the news for threatening officials of various government departments. He has ruined the reputation of the region.”
Sunil Darade, lawyer from Chapadgaon village in Niphad taluka, had complained to the state government and the Shiv Sena leadership about Anil Kadam. In March 2016, the state power distribution company had started installing a distribution panel near Darade’s farm. Anil Kadam allegedly asked the company to stop work. “The panel would have helped many farmers in the area, but he stopped it because he had not been paid off by the company,” Darade alleged.
All these antics pale into insignificance when compared with what Water Resources Minister Girish Mahajan did in March 2015. A school for the speech- and hearing-impaired invited him for a function. He went with a revolver tucked into his waistband. When he was on stage, the weapon was clearly visible to the audience.
When the opposition raised this issue, Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis replied, “He has a licence to carry the weapon. And, a licensed weapon is not meant to be kept at home.”
