NEW DELHI, December 7: The Shiv Sena's office in Shadara Chowk could well be mistaken for a small-time travel agency: a saffron signboard that hangs from the small balcony of a slightly dilapidated double-storied building announces what it really is. The room behind signboard upstairs is locked. ``That is our leader's room,'' said one of the youngmen who crowd the room downstairs. Shiv Sena Delhi chief Jai Bhagwan Goyal operates from behind the closed doors upstairs. Neighbours say the building is illegal, ``but neither the police nor the municipal corporation say anything''.The jobless youth, who Goyal refers to as ``Dilli Sena's yuva shakti'', answers the phone and receives visitors. A labourer, who has come to Delhi from Bihar a year back, quietly passes through the dark glass doors, stands uncertainly for a few minutes and then asks how he could become a Shiv Sena member.
The youth at the desk, without looking up, answers mechanically: ``Four photographs and Rs 26.)'' ``Twenty-six rupees?'' the potential Shiv Sainik exclaims incredulously. Nobody bothers to reply. Another young man hanging around informs this reporter: ``After Fire, lots of people are coming here. They have seen us on the television! These people want help from us without paying the party subscription.''
Sitting at his mosquito-infested tiny room upstairs, Goyal claims that the Shiv Sena has over one lakh primary members in Delhi today. ``We do work which is beyond the police. People are sacred of us,'' he said.
Where are the one lakh members? At the rioting at Regal there was only a handful. ``We only took the activists there. That was no election meeting,'' Goyal said.
A small-time businessman from Ludhiana, Goyal came to Delhi in 1986, when militancy in Punjab was at its peak. ``I was a member of Hindu Shiv Sena (HSS) in Ludhiana,'' he says. ``We merged with Bal Thackeray's Shiv Sena in '86. In '87, I came here and opened the Delhi unit. Then we're three persons and now there is no dearth of members,'' Goyal said.
Goyal proudly reels out a list of police cases pending against him. ``I have at least 20-25 cases pending against me.'' But he refuses to say they are mostly for rioting and damaging property. ``I'm accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case. I am the hero in the Newstrack cassette of the demolition. Balaji is on record that he is proud of us.''
For the Shiv Sena in Delhi rioting is nothing new, says Goyal and his companion. ``We done it in Ayodhya, we have done it in Zee TV office and Connaught Place, At Arjun Singh's office when he was HRD Minister. Nobody listens unless there is a riot,'' he said.
``This time even the police officers are congratulating me for stopping that Fire film,'' he pompously announced.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
Printer-friendly page