mumbai aslam shaikh the twoterm congress mla from malad appears confident of his win as he gears up for the assembly polls for the third time but he cannot afford to ignore the threat posed by a former colleague former congress corporator ramesh thakur who is contesting on a bjp ticket against shaikh in the 2014 polls bjp had lost from the malad constituency by a slim margin of 2300 votes congress biggest strength is secularism we do not preach hatred and also promote development says shaikh but all voters from malwanishaikhs strongholddont agreewhen one is struggling for basic needs like water and proper drainage systems everything else pales in comparison says shabbir ali a resident of azmi nagar who has been purchasing drinking water from the pani mafia in malwani each day we walk about a kilometre to queue up to buy drinking water and lug back heavy cans drinking water is sold for rs 7 to rs 10 per can and my family needs at least three cans a day for other domestic needs we get hard water from a borewell for rs 450 a monthbut the supply is restricted to about five minutes a day its the same story in the sprawling ambhujwadi slum where residents have to buy water ali a food vendor said the drains in azmi nagar are so low that they get flooded every time there is a heavy downpour we have shot video clips of our houses getting inundated says ali according to census 2011 95 lakh peoplethat is 76 of the citys total populationlived in malad the population here in 2001 was 79 lakh it increased by 15 lakh in 10 years infrastructure has not kept pace with the growthtraffic congestion is easily the biggest problem for malad residents at present if i have to reach the malad railway station during morning peak hour i leave my home at jankalyan nagar an hour and a half before the trains departure time the signal at mith chowky junction could take up to half an hour sometimes says entrepreneur ashish chandragiri who has lived in malad for two decades he says traffic problems can significantly reduce if malwani is linked with the back road behind infinityii mall through a bridge there is a proposal for an elevated bridge in the new development plan and a tender for it has already been issued we are also in the process of clearing unauthorised structures to carve out two new roads within malwani says shaikh the sitting mla another polling issue for malwani is the uncontrolled sale of drugs with children as young as 12 getting addicted children are resorting to crimes to fund their habit gutkha which is banned in the state is also easily available in malwani says abdul chaudhary who runs an ngo iqbal patel a 55yearold government servant holding placards against sale of drugs is a common feature on the streets whenever political rallies are held for 10 years my son struggled