Yogi Adityanath govt wooing minority among minority in Uttar Pradesh

YP govt has been trying to earn the goodwill of the Shias, who constitute 15-20% of India's Muslim population

Before the onset of Ramzan, the month of fasting in the Islamic calendar, the Yogi Adityanath government had ordered round-the-clock power supply in the minority-dominated districts of Uttar Pradesh.

The message was carefully aimed at the Muslim community, which accounts for nearly 20 per cent of the UP population and plays a decisive role in 125 of the 403 assembly constituencies, especially in the western region. The directive had come in the run-up to the by-polls to the Muslim-dominated Kairana parliamentary and Noorpur assembly constituencies, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was up against a united opposition.

The BJP lost both the seats, with the Jat-Muslim combination of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) proving stronger for the saffron party candidates. The results have already sent BJP spin doctors to rework their strategy for UP.

It is no secret that minorities are largely sceptical about the BJP, although Prime Minister Narendra Modi has on several occasions extended his hand towards the community, whether through his much-publicised and televised visits to the historic Sheikh Zayed Grand mosque in the United Arab Emirates or official tours to Saudi Arabia, Iran and other Islamic countries.

On its part, the Adityanath government has also been trying to earn the goodwill of the Shias, who constitute 15-20 per cent of the country’s Muslim population. A section of the Shia community has traditionally supported the BJP in UP, especially in Lucknow and Varanasi.

The state government had appointed Mohsin Raza, a Shia and a former cricketer, minister of state. 

Recently, Raza was re-elected member of the legislative council (MLC), while another Lucknow-based Shia leader and SP turncoat, Bukkal Nawab, was also elected to the upper house. Besides, the Adityanath government has appointed a prominent Shia leader, Tanveer Haider Usmani, as UP Minorities Commission chairman. The common refrain among a section of Shia leaders is that they have been systematically deprived of the political largesse meant for the minorities by the ‘majority’ Sunni sect.

The SP, the self-appointed champion of the minorities, had about a dozen Muslim ministers in the Akhilesh Yadav government, but none from the Shia community. The BJP government hopes to cash in on this sentiment of deprivation and dent the opposition’s attempts to polarise minorities it.

All India Shia Personnel Law Board member and spokesperson Maulana Yasoob Abbas told Business Standard the Adityanath government treated all commun-ities equally and Shias had been accorded just treatment, while other parties had neglected them.

“The Shias have supported BJP governments in the past and forthcoming polls would be no different,” he noted. He conceded that the BJP was yet to win over the Sunni community purportedly due to the narrative weaved by the opposition parties against the saffron outfit.

Recently, UP Shia Central Waqf Board Chairman Waseem Rizvi had floated a political forum named Indian Shia Awami League (ISAL). He plans to field Shia candidates in the Lok Sabha polls across India. Rizvi has recently spoken in favour of the proposed Ram Temple in Ayodhya and alleged Pakistan-backed fundamentalists in India were opposing the idea.

He said his forum would work for the uplift of the Shia community, which, he claimed, was facing persecution globally at the hands of fundamentalists.  

Rizvi waxed eloquent on Adityanath for reaching out to the Shias and according them recognition even as he suggested a larger coalition of the Shias and the majority community. “The state is working on the agenda of ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’ and the Shias have always coexisted with the majority community for centuries now.”

UP BJP leader and spokesperson Shalabh Mani Tripathi said the Shia community had always supported the BJP right from the days of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former chief minister Kalyan Singh. “The Muslim community has seen the work that our central and state governments have done for the minority community without treating them as vote banks like other parties do.”

Political commentator Hemant Tiwari said the Shias had been accorded recognition under the previous regime of Kalyan Singh, when senior BJP leader Aizar Rizvi and later his daughter Sheem Rizvi were made state ministers. “A section of the Shia sect has always supported the BJP, especially in Lucknow. The challenge before the party is to attract the Sunni community to its fold, and going by the current poll results, it looks rather difficult.”