By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
Kolkata: Tomorrow is the Phase 1 poll for West Bengal Assembly. In an exclusive interview with TwoCircles.net, Abdur Razzak Molla, Minister for Land and Land Reforms, has admitted that the Left Front regime failed to provide justice and equal opportunities to Muslims in the state, and this is the reason the community has left the Left.
Abdur Razzak Molla (Minister for Land and Land Reforms):
Why has the Muslim community gone away from the Left Front in the last three years?
The Muslim community in West Bengal demand justice and equal opportunity. The Left Front government of Bengal has failed to provide that justice and equal opportunity to the community. So they left the Left.
The attitude of the Left government is different from the other government. This government thinks that class development is better than the community development. So they focused on class development and ignored the community development. Now Bengal Muslims especially the young generation feel that they will get their share, so they want to teach the government.
You hold the portfolio of land and it is said the land issue is the main factor that pushed Muslims away from the Left.
Yes, land issue is a major factor. The land acquisition process of 1894 during the British rule was forceful. There was a very little scope to ventilate the grievances of the land losers. (The same was repeated by Left). The seventh Left Front government thought they received the verdict of the people (2006) on the slogan of industrialization and for that we required lot of land. But without any dialogue, negotiation and convincing the people they jumped on land acquisition and this created problem. As majority of Muslims in West Bengal depend on land they got afraid that if the Left Front government snatched their land in this manner they will have to move to some other place as the government will not pay them properly for the land. So they felt they are being deprived.
Muslim vote has shifted from Left Front in last three years. Will the shift continue in the ongoing assembly poll also?
Of late, the government of Bengal has tried to do something for them especially for the job reservation. This has a little effect on young Muslim people. Now they are realizing that the government is bent on the Muslims development and that’s why a little portion of the Muslim voters who had left the Left is returning towards the Left. But it is not that entire community is returning towards the Left.
Are you sure you are going to retain power?
Yes, I am sure that we will retain power because we have explained our mistakes to the people particularly the Muslim community. We tell them we are now going to rectify these mistakes. It is a process. It will take time. We are on the process. We will give justice to them. They want justice and equal opportunity not any gift. And the government has realized that Muslims want justice and without it they will not return to the party.
Ours is the only government which provided land for the campus of Aligarh Muslim University in Murshidabad. We are also acquiring land for Alia University in South 24-Parganas. We are also convincing them that security of minority is secularism. The Congress played the role of a Munafiq in the demolition of Babri Masjid as despite requests from Jyoti Basu, Congress PM Narasimha Rao did nothing to save the mosque. The other party (Trinamool Congress) behind Congress is also not secular though it is posing as a secular party.
Abdus Sattar, (Minister for Minority Affairs):
Why has the Muslim community gone away from the Left Front in the last three years?
Two things. First is the propaganda that lands of Muslims were being acquired. It is a fact that after independence Bengal was first to do land reform and here Muslims were given more land (18%) than any other state. Some Muslim organizations and clerics were deployed by Trinamool Congress to tell the Muslims that only their lands were being acquired by the Left government.
Second is the Sachar Committee report whose findings were wrongly propagated in the state. They said that committee’s findings are only for Bengal and not for all India.
Muslim vote has shifted from Left Front in last three years. Will the shift continue in the ongoing assembly poll also?
It is true. However, after the Lok Sabha poll of 2009, Muslims are realizing that they were misinformed and misguided – lands of Muslims are not being acquired; no mosque was demolished and no graveyard was taken over. Besides, they also know that in last 34 years, West Bengal had more communal harmony than any other state. Moreover, Trinamool is fielding candidates with Sangh background and this is being noticed by people. They are also noting that they are trying to create communal tension in the state that saw no such situation in last three decades.
We have done many works for the community. We set up university and B.Ed colleges and we have also proved that Sachar findings are based on old facts, the current situation is far better.
Are you sure you are going to retain power?
Why not? No question at all arises. We will show you after this election that we have got more Muslim votes than any other party.