By Dr. Saleem Ahmad for Twocircles.net
In the recently concluded election in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP achieved a landslide victory with almost 80.6% of seats and pushed rival political parties to the corner. With this fabulous victory, the right-wing Hindu nationalist party came to power after a long gap of 15 years and dominated, completely, political stage in Uttar Pradesh.
In this election, Muslim factor was one of the significant factors that have played a very negative role in the defeat of two central parties known as the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP). Basically, this election was contested between the two major groups one is comprised of nationalist Hindus and other Muslims. During the election, PM Modi carefully managed the calculation of votes at the macro as well as micro levels. Interestingly, the BJP had already declared that they do not count Muslim votes in this election to their victory, even the party has not given any ticket to any Muslim candidate, simultaneously, the leaders of BJP also ensured to keep controversial issues such as cow-beef, triple talaq, Uniform Civil Code, Shamsham-Kabristan, love-jihad, issue of the power supply during the month of Ramzan or Diwali, Ram Mandir and etc, at the forefront to consolidate Hindu votes at one side, and therefore, both the main parties could not understand the calculations of the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party. PM Modi has successfully consolidated other Hindu minorities’ votes against the Muslims community in Uttar Pradesh election. Moreover, the staunch supporters of the SP and the BSP inclined towards the Hindu nationalist party, because, they felt their party leaders are more inclined towards the Muslims instead of their supporters. For instance, both the parties decided to give out party’s tickets to the Muslim candidates, apparently, the reactions of the supporters of the SP and the BSP were unenthusiastic and they felt discriminated, and eventually, they decided to cast their votes in the support of the BJP. Furthermore, this election was fought in a very calculated move by the BJP leaders, since, the SP and the BSP did not ponder for a while, why they were focusing unnecessarily on 20% Muslim populations of the state. On the one hand, both the SP and the BSP were engaged to secure Muslim votes in the election, on the other hand, Muslims were contesting elections against their fellow Muslims candidates, and subsequently, BJP got the clear way to go ahead with the consolidated support of the Hindu majorities as well as minorities of the Uttar Pradesh. Therefore, these minorities’ votes tectonically shifted towards the BJP, that is why the SP and the BSP faced unexpected defeat in the election because of their avoidance of base supporters. In this election, the leader of the BSP, Mayawati, gave almost 100 tickets to the Muslim candidates, which directly undermined to the Samajwadi Party and indirectly caused to shift Hindu minorities votes to the BJP.
Therefore, the SP and the BSP have served the crown of victory in a plate to the BJP, and the credit goes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The total number of seats in Vidhan Sabha election, Uttar Pradesh, is 403, and the BJP won 312 seats and its allies have won 13 seats, and the grand total is 325 seats. The coalition of the SP and the Congress has won total 54 seats, the SP got 47 seats and the Congress got 7 seats respectively, and the BSP got total 19 seats, however, the total number of Muslims who have won in this election is 25 seats, the SP got 17 seats, the BSP got 6 seats and the Congress got 2 seats respectively.
As discussed earlier, Muslims were the main focus in this election, when the result announced on 11 March 2017, subsequently, the BJP announced the name of the candidate for the post of Chief Minister, Mahant Yogi Adityanath, after long deliberation, who is known for controversial statements directly against Muslims in India. Subsequently, Muslims feel scared from the rising power of Hindutva supported by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). However, I would like to remind you that the same atmosphere was created at that time when Narendra Modi won a landslide victory at the national level elections in 2014. The bias of media also aggravated this apprehension in Muslim community while India is a democratic country and each and every citizen of India has equal rights of opportunity and dignity irrespective of their caste, class, community, region, religion, gender and sex and etc. Since BJP came into power under the leadership of PM Modi, Muslims feel insecure in India, similarly, the newly elected CM, Yogi Adityanath, will also follow the path under the supervision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The ban on the slaughter houses has increased the fear among Muslims of the rising power of Hindutva, while India is a secular and multicultural country. For Muslims, the ban has directly seen as an attacked on their rozi roti or employment, a particular Muslim community has been targeted by the newly elected chief minister.
Further, Indian Muslims are divided between Shi’a and Sunni at the larger level, the Shi’a community represents the minority while the Sunni community represents the majority. Furthermore, Sunni Muslims are divided between Deobandi and Barelvi, and the caste politics is also prevailing among the Muslims in India. In Uttar Pradesh, Sunni Muslims feel secure with the Samajwadi Party and a sizeable Muslims support Bahujan Samajwadi Party; however, the Shi’a community in India openly supports the BJP against the Sunni Muslims. In this election, Sunni Muslims, especially Muslim women have voted for the BJP, because of the controversial issue of triple talaq, Muslim women expect a positive development in this regard by the PM Modi government.
In sum, Muslim factor was one of the significant factors in Uttar Pradesh election and Muslims were playing in the hands of other political parties. In fact, Muslims in India lack leadership qualities in the realm of politics, because of their socio-economic and political backwardness, and therefore, they don’t have a strong base for a political party which can address Muslims grievances at the local as well as national levels. There are some small Muslim political parties at the local levels, but they are divided due to disunity among Muslims. If Muslims wish for political benefits, according to their percentage of total population, they have to forge political alliances with political parties according to their issues and demands.
The author is Assistant Professor at Department of Political Science, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Galgotias University