BJP on their mind, SP-BSP and Congress field fewer Muslim candidates in UP

The number of Muslims in the fray is far fewer compared to the 2014 Lok Sabha election

Addressing the maiden “mahagathbandhan” (grand alliance) rally on April 7 in Uttar Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) President Mayawati deftly played the Muslim card by exhorting the minority community to vote en bloc for the alliance candidates so that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ruling at the Centre and in the state, could be defeated.

Mayawati’s clarion call in Deoband town, Saharanpur district, which has a sizeable Muslim population apart from the revered Deoband seminary, amply indicated the high-stakes bet that the mahagathbandhan comprising the BSP, Samajwadi Party (SP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) has placed on the community to take on the BJP.

Nonetheless, her comments soon attracted the ire of the Election Commission of India (ECI), which handed her a 48-hour electioneering ban.

In this backdrop, it is paradoxical that while the big constituents of the grand alliance are eyeing the undivided Muslim vote, they have reduced the number of poll candidates from the minority community to half of what it was in 2014.

Although the Congress is not formally part of the mahagathbandhan, the two formations have adopted an accommodative attitude towards each other while being locked in a high-pitch battle in some constituencies. While the SP and BSP have not fielded candidates in the Congress’ strongholds of Raebareli and Amethi, the Congress has reciprocated by staying away from the constituencies of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and his (Akhilesh’s) wife, Dimple Yadav, in the Mainpuri, Azamgarh, and Kannauj constituencies, respectively. It has not put a candidate in Muzaffarnagar, from where RLD President Ajit Singh is contesting, and Baghpat, where his son Jayant Chaudhary is in the fray.

Together the SP, BSP and Congress nominated 41 Muslim candidates in 2014; this time, the number is less than half at 18.

Under their pre-poll alliance, the SP, BSP and RLD are contesting 37, 38 and three seats, respectively.

The SP, which fielded 13 Muslim candidates in 2014, has given the ticket to only four so far (it has not announced candidates for all seats). Similarly, the BSP, which had 19 Muslim candidates in 2014, has six this time. The RLD hasn’t any. 

In 2014, the Congress fielded nine Muslim candidates while the count is down to eight this time so far (the party is still to announce candidates in some seats).

Political pundits have acknowledged it as a strategic move by the mahagathbandhan to pre-empt the division of the vote and to deny the BJP any opportunity to polarise the voters.

Since all major parties fought separately in 2014, the division of votes, including those of the Muslims, coupled with the robust Modi wave, helped the BJP and its ally Apna Dal to win 73 of the 80 seats in the state.

Badri Narayan, social historian and director of the G B Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad, said the SP-BSP had tried to keep a balance in opting for Muslim candidates so that the BJP did not get an opportunity to whip up “anti-Muslim” rhetoric during electioneering.

“The mahagathbandhan is definitely eyeing the Muslim vote, but it also does not want to give any handle to the BJP to rake up the issue of minority candidates or to antagonise a section of the majority community as well,” he said, adding even the Congress was toeing a “soft Hindutva” line to counter the BJP.

The Muslims constitute nearly 20 per cent of the UP population with a higher concentration in the western UP districts. There are nearly 36 constituencies where the Muslims play a crucial role in polling, given the perceptibly en bloc voting pattern of the community. There are about a dozen constituencies in UP where the Muslim population is more than 30 per cent. They include Saharanpur, Baghpat, Bijnore, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Rampur, Bareilly, Sambhal, Moradabad and Bahraich.

Key Muslim candidates in the fray include the SP’s Azam Khan (Rampur) and Tabassum Hasan (Kairana); the BSP’s Mohd Yaqoob Qureshi (Meerut) and Afzal Ansari (Ghazipur); and the Congress’ Imran Masood (Saharanpur), Naseemuddin Siddiqui (Bijnore), Saleem Sherwani (Badaun) and Salman Khurshid (Farrukhabad).

In 2004, 10 Muslim candidates had won in UP. However, the number dwindled to seven and nil in the subsequent elections in 2009 and 2014.

“It is the winnability factor that the mahagathbandhan has taken into consideration while fielding candidates rather than seeing it through any other prism,” All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) member Zafaryab Jilani noted.

He said there was no feeling of alienation in the community over the distribution of tickets by the SP-BSP, since their policy was keeping in view the winnability factor and preventing polarisation, which could benefit the BJP.