August 27, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-us-Sani 28, 1424

MUMBAI: The twin car bomb blasts in Mumbai will further inflame existing Hindu-Muslim tensions in the city and could spark a pro-Hindu backlash benefiting hardliners in forthcoming polls, analysts said on Tuesday.

Monday’s car bombs which killed 52 people and were the latest in a series of blasts in the city over the past eight months, will scare Hindus into voting for the hardline Hindu party Shiv Sena in 2004 state elections, analysts said.

“The strategy of hitting Hindu dominated areas by so-called radical Islamic groups is going to play in the hands of the Shiv Sena who will reap benefit from these sentiment,” said Kumar Ketkar, veteran political analyst and editor of Loksatta.

Ketkar said he expected the Shiv Sena to win even more than its current tally of 120 out of 280 seats in the Maharashtra state assembly. Currently India’s main opposition party, Congress, is in power in the state.

“Economically these blasts may not dampen the spirit, but socially and politically they will. The Hindu votes will be consolidated,” he added.

B. Mahesh, political analyst and newspaper columnist said the Congress party would lose votes as it now looked weak.

“The Congress will lose out because it is seen to be weak in maintaining security and Hindus have been targetted while it is in power.”

He said the blasts might not provoke rioting or violence, but would affect the elections.

“The polarization may reflect more politically than outright communally, with the Hindu vote being consolidated,” he said.

Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray criticized the state machinery over Monday’s blast and said the government had become immune to people dying in bomb attacks.

“Who cries for those who die every day?,” wrote Thackeray in a column in his party’s mouthpiece, Samna (Confrontation).

“There are so many deaths happening under the present government that even the sniffer dogs have stopped smelling.”

Chhagan Bhujpal, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, said on Tuesday the car bombs were linked to anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat last year, which saw some 2,000 people killed, most of them Muslims.

One of Monday’s car bombs was detonated close to a Hindu temple in the old city where mainly Hindu Gujaratis run gold and diamond shops.

“The polariziation is now not just in Mumbai, but I may say it is world over. Radical Islamic groups are getting more and more aggressive everywhere,” said Atmaram Kulkarni, political advisor at the University of Mumbai.

He said the attacks in the city were posing a challenge to the law enforcement agencies in the state.

“More than social challenge, it is at the moment a challenge to the law and order situation,” he said.

In 1992, Mumbai was in the eye of sectarian riots that left 2,000 people dead following the demolition of the Ayodhya mosque.

Mumbai was rocked by a string of bombings in 1993 which claimed 300 lives and left many injured. Arwa Hussain, a public relations professional in a Mumbai-based agency, compared the mood in the city to that of a decade ago.

“If I got a chance I would leave this city. Not only because of this growing radicalism, but also because of the fact that the city has now become unsafe.”

“The blasts in 1993 were different given the then situation... they can’t be compared outright, but the fear is definitely almost the same,” said Hussain.—AFP