Arun Gawli is a gangster-turned-politician in Mumbai, India who has been convicted for murder and imprisoned for life. Called by his men as ‘Daddy,’ he was feared and respected by all in Maharashtra.
In the 90s, Arun Gawli unleashed the gang culture in Pune. Lodged at Yerawada jail under TADA in the 1990s, this man popularly termed as Mumbai’s don brought local goons under his thumb to
launch an extortion racket. A dreaded don, he unleashed the reign of terror mercilessly and posed himself as a ‘patriotic criminal’ and a ‘victim of circumstances’. Pune had seen many faces of Arun Gawli. However, police personnel say that Gawli is the most shrewd gangster, who reorganized the city’s underworld to run a systematic extortion racket and contract kil
ling operations.
Due to lax laws that permit criminals to fight elections and as with several other criminals in India, Gawli also entered politics and formed his political party. In 2004, he was elected as a MLA from the Mumbai Chinchpokli Constituency as an Akhil Bhartiya Sena candidate.
Gawli's rise in prominence is believed to be due to his ‘native roots’ as a local lad, which made him distinct from most other non-Marathi-speaking politicians.
Gawli’s political designs suffered a major blow when his nephew and party legislator, Sachin Ahir, came out openly against him and joined Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party. He even contested against Gawli in the subsequent Lok Sabha elections on a Nationalist Congress Party ticket, resulting in defeat for them both, but victory for the Shiv Sena's sitting MP Mohan Rawle. His daughter got subsequently elected as a corporator to the Mumbai Municipal Corporation.
