Months after he made Dharavi re-development an issue in the Lok Sabha and State Assembly polls to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani, leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday visited Asia’s large slum to speak to the people and understand their problems.
Rahul, who was on his second visit to Maharashtra after the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA)’s debacle in the State Assembly polls, spent a few hours in Dharavi slum – which is being redeveloped by M/s Dharavi Redevelopment Project Pvt Ltd (DRPPL), a joint venture between the Maharashtra government and the Adani Group, is executing the redevelopment.
Upon his arrival at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, Rahul was welcomed by Maharashtra Congress President Harshavardhan Sapkal, Mumbai party chief Varsha Gaikwad, who is the Mumbai North Central MP, Congress Legislature Party leader Vijay Wadettiwar and Congress Working Committee invitee member Naseem Khan.
Rahul’s visit to Dharavi is aimed at understanding the problems of people residing there.
Spread over 240-hectare area, Dharavi has several business units -- right from textiles to pottery to fabrication to leather industry. Plastic recycling and garbage segregation too is done here. Mainly a hub of cottage industries, it has an estimated 5,000 business entities and 15,000 single-room factories. Goods produced here go to Middle East, South-East Asia, United States and Europe and several other places.
Dharavi is one of the largest leather industry hubs in the world, with more than 20,000 leather manufacturing units which employs one to 1.5 lakh workers. Gandhi is also visiting the Chamar Studio, set up by Sudheer Rajbhar, who uses various materials to create masterpieces.
This was Rahul’s second visit to Dharavi. He had earlier visited Asia’s largest slum on March 16, 2024, when he and his sister and Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi, the now Wayanad MP, travelled the locality in an open-roof SUV which marked the end of 6,700-km 66-day Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.
It may be recalled that Rahul – during his campaigning for the Maharahstra Assembly polls in November last year – had charged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was bent on handing over the Rs 1 lakh crore worth Dharavi land to industrialist Gautam Adani, while the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) was all for supporting the poor, youth and unemployed people in the state.
Addressing a news conference on the final day of the campaigning for the November 20 Maharashtra Assembly polls, “It’s a contest between one or two billionaires and the poor people of the state. On one side, Adani is eying Dharavi land, while on the other side are our workers, and youth – betrayed by the MahaYuti government are aspiring for a better life”.