By Abhay Kumar for TwoCircles.net,
Patna: Days after the entry of Asaduddin Owaisi led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) into Bihar polls, Barelvi cleric and national president of the Ittehad-e-Millat Council (IMC) Tauquir Raza Khan is ready to play the spoiler for Grand Alliance comprising JD (U), the RJD and the Congress by fielding Muslims and Dalit candidates in Seemanchal and other regions.
Talking over phone from Bareilly, Khan, great grandson of Ahmad Raza Barelvi, said that his party is considering fielding candidates in as many as 40 assembly seats, mostly in Seemanchal region that has already been zoomed in on by Owaisi in a scramble for Muslim votes.
File Photo of Tauqir Raza Khan
With several anti-BJP parties in the state fiercely competing with each other to get the support of Muslims in the upcoming assembly elections, Khan claimed that his party IMC enjoyed the support of both Muslims and Dalits. “Ours is not a Muslim party alone and as Kanshi Ram stood for, I am for Dalit and Muslims unity, ittehad,” asserted Khan.
While Khan said that the list of candidates of his party for the upcoming Bihar polls would be declared in few days, he did not rule out a possibility of lending support to any political party, which is ready to give Muslims their due share in power and development.
It should be mentioned here that while Khan campaigned for the RJD in previous Bihar elections that the party lost but this time he has turned a critic of “secular” parties. For example, while he blamed the Grand Alliance for “ignoring Muslims” and considering them “helpless”, he said that his party was open to supporting anyone, including the NDA, if it gives Muslims a share in power.
The Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (PMM), an organisation of backward and Dalit Muslims had also taken a similar stance in recent weeks. The PMM has recently said that it may consider supporting the BJP if it accepts its demands that include proportionate share in power.
Like the PMM, Khan also defended his position to give conditional support to the BJP-led NDA alliance as it was the “secular” governments that have inflicted excess — such as framing youths in terror charges, communal violence—on Muslims.
For instance, he, addressing a public meeting in Purnia on Monday, said that the Congress, which had ruled over this country for 48 years after Independence, played a role in bringing down the condition of Muslims to that of Dalits.
Besides Congress, he also took a dig at Samajwadi Party Chief Mulayam Singh for working under the instruction of the BJP as he had pulled out of anti-BJP Grand Alliance, forming the Third Front comprising the NCP and the SJ (D).
Interestingly, Khan shared the platform with NCP MP Tariq Anwar last month in a Muslim-Dalit Jan Adhikar Rally in Patna, he is now maintaining a distance from Anwar after media reported that he was projected as the Chief Ministerial candidate by the SP-NCP alliance.
While political observers do not see any prospect of Khan’s success in Bihar polls, they do recognise that if his party contest election, it may attract some Muslims voters, particularly Barelvis, in few pockets that would contribute to further division of Muslim votes.
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(Abhay Kumar is pursing PhD at Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He may be contacted at [email protected])