Editorial Viewpoint
Another battle of the ballot?
A third Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trusteeship election within three years? As daunting as the thought may be there is every possibility that 2011 will once again see weary voters lining up at the various venues to cast their ballot.
The community rumor mills are buzzing with the talk of BPP dissenting trustee Noshir Dadrawala calling it a day — more a nightmare — after over two grueling years in office. The Adult Franchise for Progress (AFP) candidate, the only one of seven to be elected, has been at loggerheads with his six co-trustees. The dispute has its origins on the issue of housing the 104 assignees okayed by the earlier board of trustees and refuted by the current lot.
Their squabbles spilled onto the media and even the courts of law. The dingdong battles favored the six BPP trustees on December 3, 2010 with a divisional bench of the Bombay High Court admitting an appeal filed by the BPP against an Assistant Charity Commissioner order chastising the six co-trustees for not providing relevant trust papers to Dadrawala. The BPP countered the papers had been given and the High Court justices saw merit in their argument.
But while court cases can go on endlessly and fortunes may sway, Dadrawala has been admitting to close friends that he is fed up of being treated like a pariah, a persona non grata. Some of his co-trustees used to hold meetings in the chief executive’s cabin prior to the official trustees meeting to keep Dadrawala out of the loop.
Dadrawala’s relations with WAPIZ (World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis)-BPP trustees Khojeste Mistree and Yazdi Desai soured several years ago when he initially agreed to run against sitting BPP trustee Dinshaw Tamboly and then withdrew when he realized they were using his candidature as an excuse to malign Tamboly. The enmity between Mistree and Tamboly goes back further when Tamboly supported Dr Homi Dhalla’s suggestion for installing solar panels at Doongerwadi as opposed to Mistree’s impractical vulture aviary project. Dadrawala’s relationship with BPP chairman Dinshaw Mehta nosedived when he sided with the Alert Zoroastrians Association (AZA) stand on flat allotments.
Housing — aside from litigation and electioneering — is Mehta’s first love and the AZA has proved a thorn in his side on this sensitive subject. By siding with his election backers, Dadrawala bore the full brunt of Mehta’s considerable fury.
While Dadrawala will find much needed peace of mind by stepping down — it’s a question of when, not if — Mehta, WAPIZ and the AZA will have their hands full preparing for the inevitable showdown. So far Mehta has proved a formidable electoral foe, coming from a family that has held an unbroken 50 years as elected Congress party representatives in the Bombay Municipal Corporation. There are few tricks in electioneering he is not conversant with. He has a considerable following and looks to his constituency’s well-being.
Who will contest the election when it is held? The Mehta-WAPIZ combine candidate is expected to be Phiroze Amroliwalla and for the AZA, Muncherji Cama. Both candidates unsuccessfully contested the October 2008 elections for seven trusteeship seats which saw adult franchise ushered in for the first time. Amroliwalla garnered 2,719 votes and Cama 3,634.
Both can be counted on to wage formidable campaigns with no punches pulled. Though there is no personal rivalry or enmity between the two, one should expect much mud to be raked by the tawdry WAPIZ Page. While WAPIZ chairman Areez Khambatta bears Cama no ill will, the relationship between Mistree and Cama soured decades ago when Mistree was an occupant in a residential building belonging to the Cama family. The Camas own the venerable Bombay Samachar, the fourth oldest newspaper in the world and a force in the Gujarati speaking community.
Amroliwalla is a forceful public speaker who initially sided with the AZA and espoused their case before the Charity Commissioner’s office regarding the 104 allotments. Why relations soured is not clear but it is alleged that the rift occurred over the AFP-AZA combine not supporting his candidature for trusteeship, driving the social activist to stand as an independent. The AFP was a creation of solicitor and Samachar columnist Berjis Desai whose legal and political maneuvering helped usher in adult franchise. The earlier board of trustees, weakened by their internal wrangling that led four of them to resign over disputes with Mehta’s style of functioning, agreed to the switch in the electoral process and stepped down from office even though their term of office was incomplete. Hence the historic election for seven seats.
While Desai is expected to support Cama, he may not play as active a role as he did last time. In 2008 he managed to get seven people of outstanding ability to run for office but they were not that well known in the community nor were they as effective speakers as their opponents. As Desai ruefully noted, given a choice between the Australian cricket team and Bangla-desh, the voters opted for the latter.
In the April 2009 election caused by the untimely death of sitting trustee Rustom Tirandaz, his widow prevailed against AZA-backed Maneck Engineer, a former BPP trustee who unsuccessfully contested the 2008 election. She won by a margin of 648 votes against the taciturn Engineer, largely on a sympathy wave.
This time the odds are even. While Amroliwalla will have the very substantial backing of the Mehta-WAPIZ alliance, it is to be seen how the electorate views the performance of the present board. If they feel Mehta and WAPIZ have not delivered on their electoral promises they may opt for an opposition candidate. If, on the other hand, they feel the present board needs more time to prove their worth they may once again lean towards the establishment.
In the past Mehta’s opponents have been painted as liberals, people who want to build crematoria at Doonger-wadi and accept converts into the fold. Cama is as orthodox as they come. Though he respected his father’s wish to have his body cremated, he himself believes in the prevailing Parsi mode of disposal.
His opponents will try to portray him as a heartless landlord who neither gives nor seeks any quarter. But in the buildings where Cama is a trustee, the trust pays for the entire repairs while in the BPP housing the tenant pays half, though earlier they paid more.
The voters will listen to both parties — and any others that might enter the fray — and avail of the free and welcome dinner packets dished out by the candidates after their election speeches. But they will eventually vote with their hearts and minds, not their stomachs.
The community rumor mills are buzzing with the talk of BPP dissenting trustee Noshir Dadrawala calling it a day — more a nightmare — after over two grueling years in office. The Adult Franchise for Progress (AFP) candidate, the only one of seven to be elected, has been at loggerheads with his six co-trustees. The dispute has its origins on the issue of housing the 104 assignees okayed by the earlier board of trustees and refuted by the current lot.
Their squabbles spilled onto the media and even the courts of law. The dingdong battles favored the six BPP trustees on December 3, 2010 with a divisional bench of the Bombay High Court admitting an appeal filed by the BPP against an Assistant Charity Commissioner order chastising the six co-trustees for not providing relevant trust papers to Dadrawala. The BPP countered the papers had been given and the High Court justices saw merit in their argument.
But while court cases can go on endlessly and fortunes may sway, Dadrawala has been admitting to close friends that he is fed up of being treated like a pariah, a persona non grata. Some of his co-trustees used to hold meetings in the chief executive’s cabin prior to the official trustees meeting to keep Dadrawala out of the loop.
Dadrawala’s relations with WAPIZ (World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis)-BPP trustees Khojeste Mistree and Yazdi Desai soured several years ago when he initially agreed to run against sitting BPP trustee Dinshaw Tamboly and then withdrew when he realized they were using his candidature as an excuse to malign Tamboly. The enmity between Mistree and Tamboly goes back further when Tamboly supported Dr Homi Dhalla’s suggestion for installing solar panels at Doongerwadi as opposed to Mistree’s impractical vulture aviary project. Dadrawala’s relationship with BPP chairman Dinshaw Mehta nosedived when he sided with the Alert Zoroastrians Association (AZA) stand on flat allotments.
Housing — aside from litigation and electioneering — is Mehta’s first love and the AZA has proved a thorn in his side on this sensitive subject. By siding with his election backers, Dadrawala bore the full brunt of Mehta’s considerable fury.
While Dadrawala will find much needed peace of mind by stepping down — it’s a question of when, not if — Mehta, WAPIZ and the AZA will have their hands full preparing for the inevitable showdown. So far Mehta has proved a formidable electoral foe, coming from a family that has held an unbroken 50 years as elected Congress party representatives in the Bombay Municipal Corporation. There are few tricks in electioneering he is not conversant with. He has a considerable following and looks to his constituency’s well-being.
Who will contest the election when it is held? The Mehta-WAPIZ combine candidate is expected to be Phiroze Amroliwalla and for the AZA, Muncherji Cama. Both candidates unsuccessfully contested the October 2008 elections for seven trusteeship seats which saw adult franchise ushered in for the first time. Amroliwalla garnered 2,719 votes and Cama 3,634.
Both can be counted on to wage formidable campaigns with no punches pulled. Though there is no personal rivalry or enmity between the two, one should expect much mud to be raked by the tawdry WAPIZ Page. While WAPIZ chairman Areez Khambatta bears Cama no ill will, the relationship between Mistree and Cama soured decades ago when Mistree was an occupant in a residential building belonging to the Cama family. The Camas own the venerable Bombay Samachar, the fourth oldest newspaper in the world and a force in the Gujarati speaking community.
Amroliwalla is a forceful public speaker who initially sided with the AZA and espoused their case before the Charity Commissioner’s office regarding the 104 allotments. Why relations soured is not clear but it is alleged that the rift occurred over the AFP-AZA combine not supporting his candidature for trusteeship, driving the social activist to stand as an independent. The AFP was a creation of solicitor and Samachar columnist Berjis Desai whose legal and political maneuvering helped usher in adult franchise. The earlier board of trustees, weakened by their internal wrangling that led four of them to resign over disputes with Mehta’s style of functioning, agreed to the switch in the electoral process and stepped down from office even though their term of office was incomplete. Hence the historic election for seven seats.
While Desai is expected to support Cama, he may not play as active a role as he did last time. In 2008 he managed to get seven people of outstanding ability to run for office but they were not that well known in the community nor were they as effective speakers as their opponents. As Desai ruefully noted, given a choice between the Australian cricket team and Bangla-desh, the voters opted for the latter.
In the April 2009 election caused by the untimely death of sitting trustee Rustom Tirandaz, his widow prevailed against AZA-backed Maneck Engineer, a former BPP trustee who unsuccessfully contested the 2008 election. She won by a margin of 648 votes against the taciturn Engineer, largely on a sympathy wave.
This time the odds are even. While Amroliwalla will have the very substantial backing of the Mehta-WAPIZ alliance, it is to be seen how the electorate views the performance of the present board. If they feel Mehta and WAPIZ have not delivered on their electoral promises they may opt for an opposition candidate. If, on the other hand, they feel the present board needs more time to prove their worth they may once again lean towards the establishment.
In the past Mehta’s opponents have been painted as liberals, people who want to build crematoria at Doonger-wadi and accept converts into the fold. Cama is as orthodox as they come. Though he respected his father’s wish to have his body cremated, he himself believes in the prevailing Parsi mode of disposal.
His opponents will try to portray him as a heartless landlord who neither gives nor seeks any quarter. But in the buildings where Cama is a trustee, the trust pays for the entire repairs while in the BPP housing the tenant pays half, though earlier they paid more.
The voters will listen to both parties — and any others that might enter the fray — and avail of the free and welcome dinner packets dished out by the candidates after their election speeches. But they will eventually vote with their hearts and minds, not their stomachs.
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