The entry of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen in the Maharashtra Assembly with two seats has become a topic of discussion across the state. Contesting its first election in Maharashtra, AIMIM has succeeded in achieving 0.9 per cent votes from the total vote share of the state, which is significant in view of the 10.6 per cent population of Muslims in the state.
The support for AIMIM in the Assembly polls is much more than that garnered by the Samajwadi Party’s (SP), whose politics has revolved around minorities and especially Muslims so far. SP has managed to get a meagre 0.2 per cent vote share that comes to only 92,304 votes.
Experts believe that the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and SP have failed badly to live up to the expectations of Muslims, resulting in a shift and them looking for a new messiah which has emerged in the form of AIMIM.
“Muslims have voted for AIMIM out of frustration. Conventionally, by and large, Muslims have voted for Congress and other such like-minded political parties. But, now they are getting frustrated with them for doing nothing in all these years,” observed Dr Abdul Shaban, professor and deputy director Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).
Pointing at the Sachar Committee report and excessive use of police force in the recent years, he said, “The community feels that Congress and NCP had taken no concrete steps despite the revelations of the socio-economic situation of the community in the Sachar report. Framing of innocent Muslim youths in blast cases like the Malegaon blast case also played an important role in a feeling of disappointment against the previous Congress-NCP rule.”
Dr Shaban was associated with the Dr Mehmood-ur-Rehman committee constituted to ascertain the socio-economic status of Muslims in Maharashtra. The committee submitted its report last year to the state government.
Dr Jose George of Mumbai University is of the opinion that the state is heading towards polarisation in terms of voting pattern and that too from both sides.
Dr George, head of the department of political science, said that Muslims somehow felt that the Congress and NCP were not protecting them and there is no place for them in the Shiv Sena and BJP. There is also some sort of feeling among them that they need to organise themselves after the rise of BJP at the Centre and that might have forced them to think about AIMIM, said Dr George.
He pointed out that out of the 282 BJP MPs, not a single one is from the Muslim community. As far as the NDA is concerned, there is only one Muslim MP supported by the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Ramvilas Paswan from Bihar.
“The BJP does not have even token representation of Muslims, be it in the general polls or Assembly elections. How can Muslims believe them? How can their confidence be built? They (BJP) need to implement what they are saying,” said Dr George. According to him, this is an indication of polarisation from both sides, a development that is dangerous for social harmony.
However, Sudheendra Kulkarni, former director of Prime Minister Office (PMO) in the government of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee thinks that AIMIM would not flex its muscles more, but accepted that the emergence of AIMIM would result in the polarisation of votes.
He said that a major chunk of the Muslim community is extremely aggrieved today and believes that they don’t have any place in the society.
“Emergence of AIMIM is a lesson for other parties and the BJP is not an exception to it. If BJP wants to perform better in Maharashtra they need to value the Muslim community and if they started doing so then I don’t feel that in the next Assembly polls AIMIM would rise further,” he stated.
Dr Zeenat Shaukat Ali takes the entry of AIMIM in the Maharashtra Assembly in a different way. Professor in Islamic studies at St Xavier’s College Mumbai, Dr Ali said that if AIMIM stuck to the agenda of development without getting into other things, it could have significance.
“Muslims in the state will be happy to be developed because for them, development and education is a very important factor for growth,” she commented. But she asserted that if the minority is included in the next government of Maharashtra, it would be much better than any other party coming and taking over.
Dr Shaban of TISS also acknowledged the fact that a section of Muslims were also looking for the BJP to fill in the gap left by the Congress. He also stressed upon the need by political parties to address the aspiration of Muslim youths for political representation. “Muslims are getting marginalised in the political representation front. Like other communities they also have aspirations, and political parties like AIMIM are filling that gap,” he said.
Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, national vice-president, said the history of AIMIM has been about provoking sentiments and if they continued with that kind of politics it would be very dangerous for Maharashtra.
“We have to analyse the situation before jumping to any conclusion on the voting pattern, especially in terms of AIMIM. But of course the love of Congress and NCP towards underprivileged communities, especially the Muslims was more or less propaganda. It was never a genuine concern and the Muslims were always hoodwinked and were used as a vote bank,” Mr Sahasrabuddhe alleged.
Explaining the BJP’s position on Muslim representation, he gave examples of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh and claimed that despite no representation of Muslims in governments there, they were doing some very good work for the welfare of the community. “Our politics has always not relied on tokenism. You will find in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh that the BJP was not in a position to give candidature to Muslims for some reason or the other and hence the Cabinet there didn’t have Muslim representation per se. But that has not prevented the government for moving ahead with the welfare of the Muslim community,” the BJP leader said.
