‘Have nowhere to go’: Muslim voters in Guj rue a lack of options
MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY
SAY POLITICAL PARTIES ARE GROWING COLD TOWARDS THEM
ANAND/AHMEDABAD: Elections do not hold out the promise of change for Ishaq Vhora, who sells fruit on the busy Bhalej Road in Gujarat’s Anand. His cart is next to a garbage pit, but buyers seem unconcerned by the ambience, or the lack of it. He is polite to a fault and shows no impatience when customers fumble for change or digital payments take too long.
“I have nowhere to go... just need to make enough money everyday to pay the rent and school fees,” he says.
His two kids are studying in a private school, where the annual fee is ₹8,000. He also has to pay ₹4,500 every month for rent. Election season means little to him, he says, although he’s been watching speeches on the phone. The poll promises of free electricity and education made by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have caught his attention. “I heard about the promise to make education free. It sounds encouraging,” Vhora says. But, “by now we know better than to believe election promises”.
“In our village Tarapur, people mostly vote for the Congress. Now people are a little upset because these days MLAS also switch sides without qualms,” he says.
Across the road from his cart are several posters of independent candidates, who he dismissed as spoilers. “The fight is between the Congress and the BJP, the rest are vote cutters. This new party (AAP) and the Owaisi party (AIMIM) are all helping the BJP,” he says.
Limited options
The AAP and the AIMIM, which seem like options for Muslims in Gujarat, are not necessarily viewed so by the community. In Ahmedabad’s Juhapura, a predominantly Muslim locality, the reactions to questions about politics, elections and representation of the community in polity evoke responses that are cautious, but betray anger and disappointment.
A homemaker, who didn’t want to be identified, said: “Is it possible for me to move out of Juhapura? Which builder will sell or which owner will rent out their houses? We live here because we cannot live anywhere else...”
In the same locality, a group of young men claim other parties are also growing cold towards the community that accounts for about 10% of the state’s population and is present in significant numbers in about 40 of the 182 seats.
“They come asking for votes, but they have definitely begun to field fewer Muslim candidates...”
While the BJP has not fielded a Muslim candidate for the assembly polls since 1998, the Congress has given tickets to six Muslim candidates, and the AAP to three. The AIMIM has the highest number of Muslim candidates at 11. A senior BJP leader, however, said the prime consideration is “winnability” for the party.
Tried and tested
Though the BJP claims that it got support from Muslim voters in 2017 after Parliament passed a law to ban Triple Talaq and is hoping for an encore based on the implementation of welfare schemes and the targeted intervention towards the Pasmanda, or the underprivileged sections, there is indication that the Congress will get most of the Muslim vote. “When you have little expectations, it is best to go with the tried and tested,” says the homemaker.
“The community believes that even if the BJP sits it out, it will still win the polls. They are not very hopeful of the opposition, so elections are seen as a ritual...,” said Afroz Alam, head of the political science department at the Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad.