Fringe parties make hay despite apex court ban

If anyone expected that the recent Supreme Court order banning the use of religion to woo voters would sound the death knell for political parties that thrive on religious divide, then they will be disappointed.

If the battle of the ballot in Uttar Pradesh has drawn firebrand AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi, known for his vituperative speeches with an eye on Dalit-Muslim votes, it has rekindled similar ambition in several other outfits.

Owaisi’s party has already announced a list of 11 nominees for the first phase of poll in UP.

“You (referring to Muslims and Dalits) have been taken for granted for too long. Assert your identity and vote for your own party now,” he said on Friday.

Being a barrister, Owaisi was articulate lest he invited the gaze of the Election Commission for poll code violation.

His counterparts in other lesser known political outfits, however, are not so circumspect in their bid to garner votes from the community.

With efforts by a section of clerics and Muslim leaders to cobble up a Bihar-like ‘mahagath bandhan’ of like-minded parties in UP coming to a naught, Maulana Salman Nadwi, a prominent cleric of Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Nadwa, says its advantage BSP and BJP.

“Muslim votes are more likely to get split because of the ongoing feud in the Yadav family of SP. Mayawati may get more support from the community. But overall, the atmosphere will help the BJP,” he said.

Nadwi was the architect of ‘Ekta Manch’— a conglomerate of 13 small regional parties — headed by him to consolidate Muslim and OBC votes ahead of UP assembly election in 2012.

The alliance lasted only 13 days. A similar effort to forge unity by forming a Peoples’ Democratic Front (PDF) of little known political groups had similarly come unstuck in 2006.

“Many so-called fronts and parties are formed just before their election. Their leaders hog the limelight, make appeals and give some controversial or brash statement to polarise voters and then slip into hibernation as soon as the results are out,” says Dr MIH Farooqui, a former scientist and secretary of Urdu Scientific Society.

“Muslim political parties cannot be the remedy for the community to solve its problems. They (Muslims) should shun politicians who promise political and social empowerment through rhetoric,” he said.

Athar Hussain of Centre for Objective Research and Development, says, “They (small parties) all have an axe to grind and aim to strike post-poll deals with national parties and be the part of big alliances.”

According to the 2011 census survey, there are 3.84 crore Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, which is almost 19% of the state’s total population.