Monday Thoughts

I read  an interesting news item which I am elaborating below.

With general elections approaching very fast, the Muslims of Maharashtra and especially Mumbai are caught in big dilemma on the subject of which party to vote during this elections. Generally over the years Muslims in mass have voted for Cong/NCP alliance. But there are rumours that Muslims as whole are not happy with this options, but for them there seem to be no choice and they might vote for this alliance, but there are indications that few are willing to move away from this alliance and might vote for BJP even.

It is been reported that some Muslims even approach Shiv Sena chief with a request that his party should not ally with BJP, but he expressed his inability saying that his party’s MLAs want this arrangement. Muslims approached Sena because their newspaper Saamna had been criticising the BJP and PM over last few years.

Secondly Rahul Gandhi’s many displays of Hindu religiosity have made Muslims uneasy.

Some of the Muslims feels that Asaduddin Owaisi’s party AIMIM can be an alternative. But most Muslims continue to see AIMIM as vote splitter , which will benefit BJP. But some who did not like Owaisi’s narrow communal appeal and high pitched public speeches earlier, now appreciate his reasoned opposition to the ruling party in Parliament and on TV. They feel Owaisi is speaking for  his community and that too always with reference to the constitution. AIMIM’s local leader is saying that AIMIM popularity is on the increase, they had one 1 seat in 2014 assembly elections from Byculla(in Mumbai) and in 2017 won  2 seats in Municipal elections. He further added that after the alliance with Prakash Ambedkar, even Dalits are also approaching us. But AIMIM workers understand that , for them to put up a candidate in general elections 2019, as it would be a difficult task to convince all the Muslims to vote foe AIMIMI .

Many Muslims are angry with the Congress/NCP combine’s failure to form an alliance with Prakash Ambedkar’s Bahujan Vanchit Aghadi (BVA), but Congress’ objection is for Owaisi who is part o BVA. Some Muslim activist are also blaming Prakash Ambedkar, as most of Congress’ senior leaders met  Prakash but he kept on raising the stakes.

As per one of the Muslim leader from BJP, another factor for the Muslim’s cold response to Congress is that Mumbai  & Maharashtra have not seen the violence that North has seen since 2014. Instead, since Devendra Fadnavis govt took over, the atmosphere has been peaceful and harassment by VHP/Bajrangdal members that preceded every Bakra Eid has stopped.

At the heart of the half hearted support for the Congress, however lie the many injustices Muslims faced for 15 years under the Cong/NCP rule in Maharashtra. The scars are still there, it could have been overlooked, had it not been for soft Hindutva approach of Rahul Gandhi, the arrest of Muslims under NSA in Congress ruled MP and the silence of CM Ashok Gehlot on the many lynching cases in Rajasthan.

Earlier Muslims used to find even Samajwadi Party (SP) an alternative, but with split in SP and their alliance with Mayawati in UP has not been much appreciated by the locals here.

Now, if the same sentiments are expressed by the Muslims in the other states than Cong will have to re plan their strategy.

So in this general elections in Mumbai &  Maharshtra Cong/NCP combine may not be a straight forward choice for Muslims.

Let us wait & watch.

Waiting for your views/comments/feed backs.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

1^st Apr 2019.