'I always dream big like my father'

PUNE: Those shoes are big to fill, but Poonam Mahajan Rao, daughter of slain BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, is trying her best to carry forward her father's legacy.
Poonam gets upset when people call her inexperienced' or an outsider' in Ghatkopar West assembly constituency. "My father has been fighting, winning and losing from this constituency since 1984. I have known the entire area for 24 years now and I have a connection with people at the grass-roots level," she told TOI on Saturday.
"Like my father I never say what I cannot do.I always dream big. I cannot say which of my father's qualities I have inherited but I want to be like him in every aspect, especially his punctuality and time management skills. I am trying to follow my father, and God willing, I will succeed," she said. For her, the party is of utmost importance. "Just like it was for my father," she said.
Poonam said she met "every voter" during campaigning. "I can say that I covered over 80 per cent houses in my constituency and the response was tremendous."
Her campaign centered around five major issues. "Almost 75 per cent of my constituency has slums. So, rehabilitation of slums, improving water supply, especially in high-rise areas of Ghatkopar, setting up a modern medical facility in Ghatkopar West and controlling price rise are the main issues," Poonam said, adding that for slum rehabilitation, she intends to push for implementation of the Afzalpurkar committee report, which was commissioned by the saffron alliance when it was in power.
She joined the BJP on October 31, 2006, after being encouraged by her uncle Gopinath Munde senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister. This was prior to her father's murder and the then 29-year-old did not hold a high public profile.
In the run up to the Lok Sabha elections, she made efforts to register new and young voters in South Mumbai and was expecting to get the LS ticket from there but could not succeed.
Poonam may have got the BJP ticket for the assembly constituency by the virtue of being the daughter of the late Mahajan and niece of Munde, but she has carved out an identity of her own as an activist of the BJP Yuva Morcha.
She has inherited her father's oratory and organisational skills and being a Marathi woman, the local Sena unit is backing her to the hilt. Initially, there were rumblings within the local BJP, with corporator Pravin Chheda raising the banner of revolt against an outsider' Poonam is a resident of Worli.
However, more than that, the Congress is banking heavily on the MNS factor to bail it out of the weak situation in which it finds itself here. The Congress has fielded Janet D'souza, daughter of former state minister Celine D'silva, who is active in the Mahila Front.
Among the three main contestants, D'souza is the only local resident, but is still perceived to be a weak candidate in an area which was made a BJP stronghold by its MLA Prakash Mehta. The Congress is hoping that the division of anti-Congress votes between Poonam and the MNS's Ram Kadam will help it win the seat in the October 13 assembly elections.
The BJP, however, says that the situation has changed after the LS polls and Marathi voters will not allow themselves to be used by the Congress. The party says that the MNS has a negative agenda, which will not find favour with the Marathi manoos'. According to local BJP activist Bharat Parekh, issues like inflation and water shortage will dominate the issue.