Usmanbhai Sheikh is brief and clear. “Mere ko bas Modi bhai mangta, aur kuchh nahi mangta (I only want Modi, nothing else),” the Naroda Patiya welder says, when asked about his hopes from an election where one of the candidates is the daughter of a man convicted of the biggest massacre of the 2002 riots.

“Murdon ko kabr se mat uthao (Don’t dig up the dead),” he adds, refusing to answer any further questions on politics or the riots. He is not alone in doing so in the Naroda Patiya slums.

Payal Kukrani, a 29-year-old anaesthetist and daughter of Manoj Kukrani, doesn’t speak about the cases against her father — who is on bail and has been seen during her campaign in the Naroda Assembly constituency.

The prosecutors have expressed no reservations against Manoj’s involvement in politics. His appeal against his conviction in the Naroda Patiya massacre — of 97 Muslims — is pending before the Supreme Court.

Payal is seeking votes in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his agenda of “vikas” (development). The BJP has dropped its outgoing MLA, Balram Thawani, who is campaigning for Payal.

The BJP has held the seat since 1990. Former minister Mayaben Kodnani — a doctor, like Payal — whose conviction in the Naroda Patiya case was overturned, represented this Sindhi-dominated seat three times. A BJP worker campaigning with Payal says the party’s goal is a victory margin of 1 lakh this time.

Hydraulic press operator Mohammed Hanif was 16 when his home was bombed with a gas cylinder during the 2002 riots. He considers himself lucky to have survived and not lost any member of his family. Now, the venue of his postwork adda with colleagues, who are from different faiths, is a tea shop opposite the Noorani Masjid, which had been the first target of the rioters.

“How long can one stay bitter? We see some of the rioters of 2002 on the streets. We greet each other and move on. We are neighbours, after all,” Hanif tells The Telegraph. “I have nothing against Dr Payal but the message is that this is a reward for her father, which is sad. In any case, Naroda Patiya has been forgotten by the government for 20 years. Only Opposition politicians visit our homes during elections,” Hanif says.

“It’s as though we are untouchables. My neighbor Rakesh can get a home in any area, but I can’t,” Hanif adds, pointing at painter Rakesh Baghel, a part of the teashop adda.

Baghel says: “No development may have happened here, but they can’t throw us all out, either. We are skilled workers. Where will they find men like us who work for so little?”

Hanif, like several other Muslim youths here, says he now supports the Aam Aadmi Party. “I like the Congress, and Rahul ji is getting great support for his (Bharat Jodo) Yatra. But here in Gujarat, they can’t win,” he says.

“How long do we keep living in squalor waiting for the Congress to win? I feel sad that the AAP did not speak about the release of the Bilkis Bano (rape and murder) convicts, but if they are doing all this to win, then it’s fine. We know about the work they do in Delhi.”

Omprakash Tiwari, fielded by the Congress the last time, is now the AAP candidate from here.

While Naroda Patiya epitomises squalor, other equally deprived slums too are vying for the government’s attention. On her door-to-door campaign in Samarth Nagar, the soft-spoken Payal assures smiling and unquestioning voters that she would do whatever needs to be done. A group of domestic workers garland her.

Asked about their hopes from the election, only one of the women, Divya, replies. “Sanitation. We want them to clean this settlement,” she tells this newspaper.

Asked why they support the BJP (that also runs the municipal corporation responsible for sanitation) despite the lack of sanitation, Divya laughs and replies: “Because they are the government.” The others nod.

Some of the older voters still back the Congress. Truck mechanic Jagadish Rakhera, 70, was a textile mill worker until the mills shut in the1980s.

“I was angry with the Congress for not saving the mills, but their three-decade absence from power has been worse. Basic things like rations had become affordable and living conditions were getting better (under Congress rule), I feel,” he says.

“Now the BJP has forgotten about the working people. They are not bothered about the price rise, and they have created permanent hatred in society. You are asking about the candidate’s (Payal) father— that whole party is like that. I see a change only if the Congress and the AAP tie up.”

Grocer Kunal Dabhi is the same age as Payal. “I don’t know what her father did. Why blame her? Naroda was a village when I was small. This government turned it into a proper city,” he says, pointing at the dedicated bus corridor outside his shop.