Bar dancers in Maharashtra pin their hopes on BJP

MUMBAI: Imagine that there is the orchestra floor," she says, pointing to the centre of the McDonald's outlet at Andheri, "there is the beer bar," pointing to the cash counter, " and this is where the clients sit," pointing to her chair, which is about four feet away from both. "Do you think prostitution can happen in such a place?" asks Geeta Shetty. Clad in a dark green salwar kameez that hides a back support belt, this kohl-eyed, out-of-work bar girl wonders if politicians even viewthem as human beings.

"Bar girls vote, many even go to their villages and vote," says Shetty. "Can these parties hold a press conference asking every single bar girl in Maharashtra not to vote," challenges Shetty.

Five years ago, however, this sharp witted girl had campaigned for a party that made people like her cry. In 2009, to the chagrin of her friends, Shetty had manifested impromptu crowds and handed out numerous pamphlets in Dahisar for the NCP, whose leader R R Patil was responsible for the 2005 dance bar ban. "I had my reasons," says Shetty, a mother of two, who didn't hope to be complaining about the rising price of rice and MRI scans five years later but she is. "I am now hoping the BJP will come to power," says Shetty, referring to the party that many bar girls and owners seem to be banking on, to rearrange their fate.

"The Congress has done nothing for us in the last ten years," says Munmun, a waitress at a dance bar in Borivli. In June last year, when the Supreme Court lifted the 2005 ban on dance bars, Munmun had distributed pedhas, not knowing her happiness would last just as long as those sweets. The government was firm in its stand on dance bars remaining shut and nothing changed, she says. "We have not only lost our income but also respect. Customers tip us as low as Rs 10 now," says Munmun, who is banking on the BJP to help the industry return to its shimmering, currency showered pre-2005 avatar.

That rosy period, a decade ago, was also the time when the Congress used to be touted as "the businessman's party," recalls bar owner and secretary of Mumbai Hotels Association, Pravin Agarwal. "But the party is not that anymore," feels Agarwal, grousing that bars have not been allowed to start dance so far and that cops continue to extract their pound of flesh. "We are only allowed four artists per stage up to 1.30 am. Even if we replace an artist during a crisis, cops slap us with indecency or obscenity charges," says Agarwal, whose various trips to Gujarat have inspired his confidence in the economic policies of the BJP. "I think the party will provide stability and its policies will encourage business development in Mumbai," he says.

Not everyone is as hopeful though. "I don't believe any of the parties are here to help us. I am voting only as a formality," says Aziz Mansoori, whose tailor and garment shop in Vashi was one of many businesses on the fringes of the dance bar industry. Mansoori, who would get orders for zariladen lehengas and cholis costing at least Rs 4,000 each from the neighbourhood bar girls, was set back by Rs 7 to Rs 8 lakh in 2005. "When dance bars were in business, women in the city were safer as the crime rate was low," says the garment shop owner. "But some people refuse to note such statistics and feel they are above the law," he says.

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