He would probably raise his voice all over again if the Congress president made another trip to the town today, a day before it goes to vote. Gandhi had promised a 200-bed hospital for

Malegaon in 2001 in the aftermath of communal riots there. Despite the reminder in 2006 — and another bomb attack in 2008 — the hospital is yet to see the light of day.

“I told her one of the major deficiencies here is inadequate health care and that a good hospital would have saved many lives,” says the convent-educated pharmacist, who lost his 18-year-old son and 17-year-old nephew in the 2006 blasts. Three years on, he continues to fume over what he says is the “neglect of Muslims” by the Congress.

“Congress-led governments in the state and at the Centre have marginalized Muslims and used us as votebanks. Even after three years of the blast that claimed the life of my son, justice has not been done...there has been another blast and a chargesheet has been filed within three months, but what about the previous blast?”

Salim’s is not a lone voice. Anger against Maharashtra’s secular ruling coalition of the Congress and the NCP is a common refrain across this communally sensitive town and is expected to influence the outcome of the polls in Dhule constituency, of which Malegaon is now a part.

“They only come to us when they need votes,” claims Nisar Ahmed, another Malegaon resident who lost his son Azhar in the 2008 blast. “All parties are alike...nobody cares for us. After the incident, we had a lot of visitors promising us all sorts of things, but they have all vanished,” he said and claimed that even Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi had announced that his party would distribute compensation but did not.

While voters talk of terror, the plight of Muslims and the chargesheeting of suspected Hindu extremists for last year’s blast, these hardly figure on the agenda of either the Congress or the BJP candidate for the Dhule seat.

Reason: the changed socio-religious make-up of the constituency after delimitation, a factor, political observers say, indicates how elections can end up being more about arithmetic and less about issues that matter.

Before delimitation, Malegaon was an independent Lok Sabha constituency reserved for ST candidates as there were large tribal areas outside Malegaon town that were part of the constituency. However, the large Muslim vote from Malegaon was usually a decisive factor and tribal leaders such as Haribhau Mahale of the Janata Dal (Secular) got elected in the past with the help of its controversial seven-time local MLA Nihal Ahmed.

But after delimitation, the constituency has become General and renamed Dhule, with tribal areas being excluded from it and new urban, general areas added. As a result, the domination of Malegaon — and thereby its Muslim votes — has decreased. Moreover, Hindus are a minority in the town and Muslims are believed to have realized that antagonizing local Hindus could create problems.

Nevertheless, old warhorse Nihal Ahmed is in the fray this time as the JD (S) candidate and is expected to garner Muslim votes. But according to some local leaders such as Maulana Mufti Mohammed Ismail, who had successfully experimented with local politics by floating a “Teesra Mahaz”or third front for the civic polls, Ahmed’s presence would divide “secular votes’ and ultimately help BJP’s Pratapdada Sonawane.

The Congressman in the fray is Amrish Patel, a legislator from Shirpur (Dhule district). “In the last elections, the presence of CPM’s Jiva Pandu Gavit divided secular votes and paved way for the victory of BJP’s Harishchandra Chavan” the Maulana pointed out. The face-off in Dhule, therefore, is between Patel and Sonawane, with Ahmed expected to play the spoiler for Patel.