Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls: Muslim voters on the horns of a dilemma

Asaduddin Owaisi says the Indian Constitution is his ultimate weapon as a Muslim because that is the 'the best document for India, for Indians, for Muslims, for Dalits'

Muslim voters in Uttar Pradesh (UP) are in a dilemma. In their quest to protect their identity and yet have a say in the way UP is going to be governed, the choice before them is to vote for the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), which is contesting 100 seats in UP out of the 403 going to the polls; or stick to traditional parties like the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which might not be espousing the cause of minorities that loudly any more, but are better placed at defeating the primary enemy: the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The most recent disappointment with SP within the community is the way the issue of Azam Khan’s prolonged incarceration was handled by the party. Khan is contesting the Assembly elections (Rampur) from jail as an SP candidate after a court denied him bail; 104 court cases are registered against him (and his family), ranging from land encroachment to allegations of goat, buffalo and books theft. There is some regret in the community that Khan was not made a cause celebre by SP the way it might have been done when Mulayam Singh Yadav had been in charge. Only in 2021, after he’d already been in jail for several months, did SP start a campaign for his release. His son Abdullah is an SP candidate (Suar), also recently released from prison for allegedly falsifying election documents about his date of birth.

Says psephologist and politician Yogendra Yadav: “The rise of AIMIM shows that the Muslims are sick and tired of the Congress’ brand of ‘secular’ politics, also practised by the likes of the SP and the Rashtriya Janata Dal. They resent being used as a vote bank, as hostages. This kind of ‘secular’ politics did not give the Muslims meaningful access to basic necessities of life. Nor did it allow them to vent their grievance as Muslims.”

But academic and UP expert Sudha Pai says there is little evidence on the ground that Muslims will deviate from the past trend of ‘strategic voting’. “You look at the candidate and assess; which is the candidate that is going to defeat the BJP in that particular constituency, and vote for that person. So no pattern may emerge. But it is decision based on ground reality".

The rise of AIMIM is in itself an interesting story. The party, which has its roots in the old Hyderabad region of Telangana, contested UP Assembly elections for the first time ever in 2017. It contested 38 seats, won zero (37 of its candidates lost their deposits), but in the seats contested, managed 2.4 per cent of the vote share. These votes might have gone to the SP or Congress kitty if AIMIM had not been in the picture, and this has earned the AIMIM notoriety as the ‘B’ team of the BJP. This feeling was reinforced when it decided to contest the Bengal election but on its own, without collaborating with the Trinamool Congress; and before that in the Bihar Assembly elections.

This time too, not only has its leader Asaduddin Owaisi refused point blank to collaborate with the SP-RLD combine, he has become more ambitious by contesting as many as 100 seats.

Community leaders who did not want to be identified see two trends: one, the Owaisi-isation of Muslim politics where radical rights rhetoric for Muslims is a central theme. Owaisi, who is a brilliant speaker, has said many times in Parliament that the Indian Constitution is his ultimate weapon as a Muslim because that is the "the best document for India, for Indians, for Muslims, for Dalits. That is the best document to attain social justice".

But he wants the rights of Muslims as enshrined in the Constitution to be applied to their current conditions. In keeping with this, for example, he wanted the perpetrators of a life-threatening attack on him recently to be punished under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, under which scores of Muslim youth have been jailed.

While this kind of muscular rhetoric goes down well at election meetings, analysts say all this means is greater polarisation between Hindus and Muslims — which is precisely what the BJP wants. If there is no middle ground, they say, parties like the SP will get no liberal space.

Rahul Verma from the Centre of Policy Research says this is going to be the trend in 2022 and warns of the dangers that lie ahead. “Increasing political polarisation and trust deficit have created a strain on institutions and democratic culture in society. One way to address these issues is to find ways of increasing dialogue across the aisle. People on either side of the spectrum need to be convinced that we are in this together and unless we collectively join hands to minimise these tensions in society, the fractures are going to engulf everyone involved.” 

In the 403-member UP Assembly, there were 63 Muslim MLAs. This came down to 24 in 2017. Mainstream parties argue that Muslims alone need not speak for the Muslims — others should be speaking up for them. But now they are just 5.9 per cent of the Assembly and in policymaking in a state where the community is almost a fifth of the population. This makes the role of parties like the SP and the AIMIM the issue of an underlying debate currently within the community.