By Zaidul Haque, TwoCircles.net,
Kolkata: In the recently concluded general elections as the vote share of the Trinamul Congress increased in West Bengal, the Muslim groups led parties failed to grab the attention of the voters even in the minority concentrated constituencies.
None of AIUDF, WPI, SDPI, JSM, IUML could get even a lakh votes. The voting percentages of TMC were 39.3% that of the CPIM was 22.7%. In what was apparent Modi-wave, the voting percentage of the BJP increased significantly from 6% in 2009 to 16.8% this time.
Among the Muslim political parties AIUDF got the largest number of votes. AIUDF contested in eight constituencies in the Loksabha Election 2014 from West Bengal form different district and bagged 0.2% of total votes which is 95428. Welfare Party of India contested from 9 constituencies and bagged 47987 votes. Social Democratic Party of India contested in 4 constituencies and bagged total 47861 votes. Indian Union Muslim League contested in 9 constituencies and got only 29564 votes. Another Muslim political party Jamat-E-Seratul Mustakim contested in three constituency and got 10564 votes.
Among the AIUDF candidate’s state president of AIUDF Maulana Siddiqullah Chowdhury who contested from Basirhat constituency of North 24 Pargansa district could manage only 25178 votes. Basirhat Constituency has 49.57% Muslim voters. BJP got 18.36% of votes here and came third.
Another AIUDF candidate of Malda South constituency Najrul Islam got 21207 votes, 1.94 % of total votes polled. SDPI candidate Imtiaz Ahmed Molla got 12952 votes, Md Faruque Hossain of IUML got 3282 votes and Jamat-E-Siratul Mustakim candidate Md Ezaruddin got 3377 votes here. Malda South has 59.65% Muslim voters still the four Muslim led parties AIUDF, SDPI, IUML, JSM together got only 40818 votes. BJP candidate Bishnupada Roy got 216180 (19.79% votes).
AIUDF candidate Najmul Haque who contested from Murshidabad got only 11333 votes. Murshidabad has 70.66% of minority voters. Md Khoda Bax Sekh of WPI got 6445 votes while the SDPI candidate Masudul Islam got 6010 votes and IUML candidate Abdul Bari got 5383 votes. AIUDF, WPI, SDPI and IUML together got 29171 votes here.
In Balurghat Constituency of South Dinajpur district where Muslim population is 27.72%, AIUDF candidate Abdus Sadek Sarkar got 10547 votes, while the BJP got 223014 votes.
Malda North constituency has 45.89% minority population. AIUDF candidate Abdul Khaleque could garner only 4650 votes and Nurul Islam Majidi of WPI got 7128 votes. They thus together got 11778 votes, while the BJP got 223014 votes.
WPI, SDPI and JSM together got 29051 votes in Jangipur that indirectly helped Congress candidate and son of Presidnet Pranab Mukharjee, Abhijeet Mukharjee clinch victory from closest rival Muzaffar Hossain of CPIM. BJP here too got 96751 votes.
WPI had nominated three non-Muslim candidates in West Bengal Piyush Barman in Coochbehar, Manturam Halder in Mathurapur and Manasa Sen in Sreerampur. They together got 13217 votes. Similarly AIUDF candidate Taranga Mondal got 13333 votes in Mathurapur and IUML candidate Manik Chandra Mondal got 1500 votes form Tamluk constituency.
Thus while the general elections saw TMC votes consolidating and BJP gaining tremendously, Muslim led parties failed to make any impact.