Is there a ‘Muslim vote’ in UP?
They have three distinct, but common, set of concerns: dignity of Islam, wish to see people from their community in Lucknow and the third is demonetisation
BAREILLY/RAMPUR/ALIGARH/MUZAFFARNAGAR/ DEOBAND/AZAMGARH: There is a Muslim vote, yet there is no Muslim vote in Uttar Pradesh. Take two ends of the vast state.
In Bareilly’s Mohanpur village, Mahtab, an AC repair worker, says he will vote for Akhilesh Yadav, for the young chief minister has done ‘vikas’ (development). In Azamgarh’s Lalganj, at a madrasa, Maulana Mohammad Sharwar says he would have voted Samajwadi Party (SP) but for the internal feud. Now, he would vote for Mayawati (Bahujan Samaj Party — BSP).
What is obvious is the difference in preferences. What is common is the party they would not vote for — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Muslim vote is one of the most coveted constituencies. Every ‘secular party’ wants consolidation of minority votes in its favour.
BSP has given 97 tickets to Muslims. The SP and the Congress are allying to show to Muslims that they can stop the BJP.
The BJP, for its part, aims to unite a ‘Hindu vote’ to counter the ‘Muslim vote’. But do minorities think and vote together?
THE IMPORTANCE OF 2017
Muslims have three distinct, but common, set of concerns in this poll.
“(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi is already in Delhi. If he wins Lucknow, he will do whatever he wants, he will become even more arrogant. In a jammoriyat, democracy, a strong opposition is necessary,” says Mohammad Khalid Hamid, the city mufti of Aligarh.
When asked what about Modi worried them, he replied, “There is no personal enmity. But the way BJP talks about Islam, the way they defame Muslims is not acceptable to us.”
For the first time in its electoral history, UP did not send a single Muslim MP to the Lok Sabha in 2014. Paradoxically, this was when the legislative assembly had the highest Muslim representation — 63 were elected in 2012. Muslims want to see faces from their community in Lucknow. And for this, they need non-BJP parties to do well, for the BJP rarely, if at all, gives tickets to Muslims.
And the third reason is demonetisation. While it has affected every citizen, across the board, Muslims are more vocal in their opposition. Right opposite Aligarh’s Jama Masjid is a labour mandi. Rashid says his income has dropped from ₹Rs 5,000 a month to ₹2,000.
“I don’t care about Modi. What I know is that he has ruined my work. He needs to lose.” Echoes of this from Muslims can be heard in Bareilly’s Old City, in the small bazaars of Rampur, in Azamgarh.
‘TACTICAL VOTING’ VERSUS FRAGMENTATION
Mohammed Irshad is a former pradhan of Muzaffarnagar’s Bassi-Kallan village.
When asked if the community will vote together, he nods. “Yes. Two days before the election, our leaders in the town will tell us about the ‘mahaul’, environment. We will take this message down to the village.” What would be the criteria of deciding the vote? “Whoever can defeat BJP.”
This is famously called ‘tactical voting’.
Yet, there are limits. There are class and caste distinctions among Muslims; there are Muslims in every non-BJP party; there are seats where multiple Muslim candidates compete, fragmenting the community vote.
A senior cleric of Darul Uloom Deoband explains, “See, defeating BJP is a big factor. But not all Muslims are able to judge that accurately. Other factors also matter: the candidate, the party, the village dynamics.”
He argues that if all Muslims voted together, the BJP would not have won UP ever. UP 2017 will revolve around precisely this paradox — of a Muslim vote that has common traces, yet is not homogeneous.