Economic Times, Dec. 11, 2013
Delhi saw big mobilisation by maulanas against Congres. With them planning to take the campaign national, the GOP faces a piquant situation.
AFTER VOTE DROUGHT, CONG FACES A MUSLIM FAMINE
Trouble Ahead for GOP Delhi saw big mobilisation by maulanas against Cong. With them planning to take the campaign national, the GOP faces a piquant situation of Muslim desertion despite Modi
ROHINI SINGH NEW DELHI
Five of Congress’ eight MLAs in Delhi now are Muslims. That tells you something. But what tells an even bigger story is this: compared with 2008 assembly elections, Congress lost more than 70% of Muslim support in Delhi, according to the party’s internal calculations. And that loss of support was a direct result of an aggressive and focused campaign against Congress by Muslim leaders. This, in an election cycle that has Narendra Modi as BJP’s votegetter-in-chief. And it could get worse, Congress leaders privately admit and some Muslim leaders openly predict. Congress’ general election prospects, not excluding the all-important constituencies of Rae Bareli and Amethi, can get significantly affected by Muslim anger. In the key states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, share of Muslim votes in the total electorate is around 19% and a little less than 17%, respectively. Political pundits say around 150 out of 545 Lok Sabha constituencies are significantly affected by en bloc shifts in Muslim votes.
In recent assembly elections, Congress’ heavy losses have come even from areas with heavy Muslim voter concentration. Rajasthan, where the party suffered awipe-out, saw a sharp jump in Muslim votes for Bharatiya Janata Party, despite Modi campaigning intensively in the state.
Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi, an influential Muslim scholar who was a key part of Muslim leaders’ campaign against Congress, says the party can no longer bank on the Modi factor to get Muslims to vote for it.
“This so-called secular government thinks where will Muslims go? We have been saying that we are not scared of Narendra Modi and they cannot use the Modi fear to scare us into voting for them again. What has happened in Delhi is a trailer. We will carry on our campaign till the Lok Sabha,”says Qasmi.
So, why is Congress in this position four months before general elections? It all started with two monuments, one man and one allegedly false police case.
TWO MOSQUES AND A MAN DID CONGRESS IN
In March 2012, Syed Mohammed Ahmed Kazmi, a Press Information Bureau-accredited Delhi journalist, was arrested by Delhi Police’s special cell. Police charged Kazmi with aiding an Iranian intelligence service plot to bomb an Israeli Embassy car belonging to Tel Aviv’s defence attaché in Delhi. Police say Kazmi confessed to assisting some Iranian officials and receiving $5,500 for his services. Kazmi has said in court that the confession was obtained by police making him sign a blank paper under threats that non-cooperation will mean “dire consequences” for his family.
Police say Kazmi hasn’t signed other statements it has submitted as evidence. Only the “disclosure statement” is signed.
Prominent Muslim leaders allege Kazmi is not just a victim of bad policing but that he was targeted for his active role in Muslim protests against alleged land-grab of wakf properties by persons with “connections to prominent Congress politicians”. ET was the first to report (on August 27 and September 9) the Muslim anger against Congress leaders over what they saw as wakf property landgrab. The two plots, in Delhi’s tony Jor Bagh and fast-developing Mehrauli, house Muslim religious structures.
Months-long protests, according to Muslim leaders, led to little action. Plus, Kazmi was picked up by the police. ET had earlier reported Muslim leaders warning Congress of electoral consequences.
PROTESTS AGAINST CONGRESS
Two days before Delhi’s December 4 election, Maulana Syed Kalbe Jawad Naqvi, an influential Muslim cleric, held a press conference in Delhi, asking Muslims not to vote for either Congress or BJP but for a third party. Maulana Naqvi’s appeal was published prominently in Delhi’s Urdu press. The national media ignored all of this. But Congress can’t — anymore. Among Congress’ heavyweight defeats in Delhi are Sheila Dikshit and Yoganand Shastri. The two wakf plots fall in Dikshit’s and Shastri’s constituencies.
Muslim protesters had demonstrated outside the Delhi residences of Ahmed Patel, Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary, and Kamal Nath, Union minister for urban affairs.
“Ahmed Patel had told us that no matter how much we protest there was no way Shastriji (Yoganand Shastri) can be defeated. I want to ask him now, will he still say the same? There were 12,000 Muslim votes in Mehrauli alone and not a single one went to Congress,” says Shazida Begum, who has been leading the protests. Shastri lost to BJP’s Parvesh Singh by more than 12,000 votes and was in the third position.
At the height of assembly election campaigning, in November, a group of prominent Muslim clerics and leaders held a conference in Delhi. The meeting discussed the Kazmi case and wakf land ‘encroachment’, and passed a resolution proclaiming Congress was not to be supported in coming elections. Then, this was put into action. Under the guidance of newly formed United Muslim Forum, 15 lakh text messages were sent to Muslim voters, urging them not to vote for Congress. Twenty-five teams tasked with campaigning against Congress were sent to Delhi constituencies with significant Muslim presence. The forum also distributed campaign material on ‘Congress misdeeds’ and took out advertisements in Delhi’s Urdu newspapers. ‘Vote for AAP, not Congress’, the ads said.
‘PROMISES NOT KEPT’
Qasmi says besides terror cases and wakf issues, Congress has not even kept the smaller promises made to the community, be it increasing the salaries of Imams or priests, disbursal of loans from minority financial corporation or hiring Urdu teachers.
“Through Right to Information applications, we discovered that nothing had happened to any of those promises. Worse, innocent Muslims are being targeted by the State and fixed if they raise their voice in protest. When a wellknown figure like Kazmi can be arrested, imagine what can happen to other Muslims. Par ab darr aur khauf ki siyasat nahin chalegi (We won’t allow a reign of fear),” says Qasmi. Congress differs with Muslim leaders. Congress general secretary and Delhi in-charge Shakeel Ahmad denies that Muslims are shifting away from the party. “Five of the eight seats won by Congress were in Muslim-dominated areas,” says Ahmed. “Muslims are expecting much more from Congress than can be done by the party,” says Rahman Khan, the minister for minority affairs. Khan says Congress has done more for Muslims than any other political party, and the community cannot turn the encroachment of wakf properties or the arrest of Kazmi into “emotional” issues.
Some of India’s most prominent Muslim leaders don’t have any time for such arguments. Muslim leaders say the Delhi experiment, where the community organised itself and actively campaigned against the party, would be repeated in other states, notably the battleground states of UP and Bihar.
“We will campaign against any party that works against Muslims. Here, even Sonia Gandhi had personally met us and assured us the issues will get resolved. But that has not happened. In the Lok Sabha elections, we will even campaign against the Gandhis in their constituencies,” Maulana Jawad says.