Each time the development-versus-slums debate plays out in his constituency, three-time MLA and minister Naseem Khan has sided with the latter.

Stretching from Kurla to Powai, the Chandivli constituency is caught in a whirlpool of projects such as the airport expansion and Mithi river revival, projects that require shanties to be cleared on a massive scale. Then there is also the Metro first corridor from Versova to Ghatkopar that had raked up protests from the commercial tenements in Khan’s constituency.

Khan, who with a sweeping margin of 33,715 votes tops the victories in both Mumbai and Thane, states that as a people’s representative he will naturally raise his voice if slums are demolished without a proper rehabilitation plan. “A section of the media has always attacked me for my stand; one paper even went to the extent of calling me the godfather of slums. That doesn’t mean I am against development. I am with our government on their agenda of having a slum-free Mumbai,” said the former Minister of State for Home (Urban) whose 3.78 lakh-strong constituency comprises 65 per cent slums, with Muslims the predominant community.

Stressing his pro-development stand, Khan talks about the pilot project of rehabilitating 2000 slum residents living on airport land at Rafiq Nagar, a project that was delayed by almost a decade. “The families were shifted to Dindoshi in Goregaon. If indeed I was supporting slums for votebank politics, then would I have agreed to have them rehabilitated outside my constituency?” he said.

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