By TwoCircles.net staff reporter,
Ahmedabad: Muslim leaders from different parts of the state as also outside, while participating in a discussion on “Strategies for the Lok Sabha Elections-2009’’ organized by the Coordination Committee of Muslims from Gujarat (CCMG) on Sunday, suggested that the community must stand united and ensure maximum polling in favour of candidates with secular and clean image to prevent the fascist and communal forces from occupying the political power at the centre.
While admitting that the Congress had not addressed Muslim issues in the state despite the fact that the community had along been voting for this party, the leaders were unanimous in their view that they should vote for the Congress, the only party in a position to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state, under any circumstances.
Observing that it was the necessity of Muslims to ensure victory of the secular candidates and groups, the leaders opined that the community leadership from each of the 26 Lok Sabha constituencies must meet the Congress candidates and express their support to them.
Even if the Congress leaders may be taking the Muslim support for granted, the leaders said that the Muslim leadership should send a message that they were firm at ensuring victory of the secular forces come what may.
Participants said that meeting the secular contestants was necessary to indicate that the community was active and alert and was interested in getting them elected. “we should meet them after the election as well and realize them that they have won with our support’’, said Dr. Manzoor Alam of the All India Milli Council (AIMC) told the gathering in the Diamond Jubilee Hall in Juhapura, the biggest Muslim locality of the state, in Ahmedabad.
Dwelling on the political dilemma of the Muslims in the state, he said that Gujarat was among 11 states in the country where there was two party system and Muslims had no third choice.
According to him, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Himachala Pradesh were the states where the Muslims faced very peculiar political situation akin to Gujarat. But the only difference in Gujarat was that it had witnessed state sponsored communal carnage in 2002 and it had resulted in deep communal polarization.
But Dr. Alam suggested that it should not dampen the spirits of the community and “must do all to ensure victory of secular candidates even if we don’t have choices’’.
“Voting secular candidates to power is our need because the fascist forces like BJP are bent on changing the secular character of the Constitution and reducing the minorities, especially Muslims to second class citizens’’, he declared, adding the freedom the minorities were enjoying because of the secular constitutional laws of India even if it were not implemented sincerely in many of the cases.
“At least we can fight for our rights under the existing constitution’’, he said, adding the “community will suffer unimaginable losses if the fascist forces entrench themselves at the Centre and L K Advani becomes the Prime Minister’’.
Advising Muslim leadership to avoid using emotional appeals and speeches, he asked them to talk about constitutional rights of the community to neutralize the Hindutva forces which were trying to polarize the electorates on communal lines to win elections.
He also suggested Muslims to strengthen their roots at village panchayat, taluka and district level for their political empowerment at the state and national level.
Dr. Alam said that while the community leaders were talking of strategic polling, they had done nothing in the last six months to ensure that names of all eligible Muslim voters were enrolled in voters list of the constituencies.
“How can you vote if your names are not there in the voters list’’, he questioned, saying his information was that about 50 per cent of Muslim voters did not have their names in the voters list in Gujarat.
In a message sent for the programme, Gujarati poet and litterateur Masafir Palanpuri exhorted the community to use their right to vote as a weapon to defeat the fascist and communal candidates.
Activist Ibrahim Sheikh wanted that the community must support the candidates with secular credentials irrespective of his affiliation to any caste, creed or religion.
“We must vote for secular candidates to protect freedom of speech, civil rights and human rights of all’’, opined Ismailbhai Khas from Dholka, heading a trust run senior secondary school.
Ahmedabad-based journalist Habib Sheikh said that Muslim representation in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies had gone down as constituencies with sizeable Muslim population had been deliberately reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates to keep Muslims away from political power.
“The community must take up this issue with the Election Commission of India and get the constituencies with Muslim population converted into open or seek reservation of constituencies for Muslims on population basis to ensure proper representation of the community in parliament and state assemblies’’, argued Sheikh.
He said that Ahmedabad West with 26 per cent of Muslim electorates and Kutch with 20 per cent Muslim voters had been reserved in Gujarat, to prevent Muslims from contesting on these seats.
Activist and real estate developer Javed Saiyed also wanted the leadership to demand reservation of seats for Muslims in assemblies and Parliament to ensure Muslims political empowerment.
Saiyed Mahmood of Vijapur, who is the state convener of the Gujarat Congress Minority Cell, candidly admitted that there was discrimination against Muslims in the Congress party as well but voting for Congress was a necessity because of the peculiar situation in the country.
“the best option is to float an independent Muslim party’’, he said, adding that even Congress was not very much interest in solving problems faced by Muslims.