Is Muslims of India Divided or

Compromised under BJP (Fe)rule?

Kashif Ali
(@iMKashifAli)

"Modi has become the greatest leader of Post- Independent India" .These were the
words of Amit Shah (President of Bhartya Janta Party i.e. BJP) in a meeting, held a
day after the results of recent elections of 5 Indian states. The results were not only
surprising but even not expected for not only the major Political parties including
Indian Nation Congress (INC), Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) and SamajWadi Party (SP) but
for many political analysts too.

The significance of this election was much highlighted and focused in a sense that
among Pujab, Uttarakhand,Goa and ManiPur, it included the largest and most
prominent state of India i.e. UttarPardesh (UP), and it was considered a kind of
referendum for Modis demonetization policy too. The importance of UP can be
understood from the fact that it had not only maximum number of seats of 403, but
there is a myth that whoever governs UP, will rule the federal government of India
too. (One can resemble it with the Punjab of Pakistan in terms of political majority
and significance). Not only the most strongest Prime Ministers of India i.e. Nehru,
Indra and Rajiv were elected from this state, even the current Prime Minister Modi
was not elected from Gujarat but from UP as well. And historically it was Oudh or
Awadh of UP, in which East India Company founded, which subsequently led British
to rule all over India.

Other than these noteworthy facts, the geo-political scenario of UP is important due
to its Muslim population as this comprises about 18% voters of whole population of
state and Muslims play a crucial factor in any electoral process. Due to this reality
any political party neither ignore nor succeeds without the support of Muslim voters.
However the scenario of election results tells a different story this time.

Before discussing and analyzing the post result developments, first lets share the
pre-election picture of these elections.

First it is to understand that Elections in India doesn't run in a day simultaneously,

but it progresses in 4 to 5 processes scheduled in almost 30 days. Where each state
is divided into smaller zones and almost 20% of constituencies of a state run
election in a single day, but not consecutively day after every day, and finally
results are announced almost a month after the first process of election.
Since the time Congress lost its stronghold, UP has become a battleground of Yadav
Family's Samajwadi Party(SP) and Maywati's Bahoojan Samaj Party (BSP). Both
parties closely work with Muslim representatives and nominate considerable Muslim
candidates, as after the weakening of Congress party all across India and
particularly in UP, provided space to fill by these two parties. Though the prime
voters of BSP are low cast Dalit Hindus, but it relies on Muslim Population as well.
But despite its importance in current scenario where both Dalits and Muslim are
marginalized and there is a hue and cry from every corner about polarization of
Indian Society, BSP couldn't excel and lost the previous elections against SP. On the
other hand SP itself underwent the rejuvenation process, and conflicts among Party
Chief Mullayam Singh Yadava and his son and Chief Minister of UP Aklaish Yadava
created negative impact, which resulted expelling of founder (Mullayam Singh) from
his own party. Though the internal rift of father and son were seen as pre-settlement
by some circles in a way to cleanse corruption charges and deviating the focus from
development projects. These developments led SP to form an alliance with INC,
which was even facing lowest of its popularity. Assessing these realities, BJP took
the advantage and declared UP as their battleground, due to which Prime Minister
Narendra Modi camped himself with platoons of ministers and officials in UP and
took out day night rallies and road shows without any pause. Another strategy
which BJP adopted was that, despite other parties reliance on Muslim Candidate; it
nominated not a single Muslim candidate from a Muslim majority state. And
eventually all this went into its favor which resulted the clean sweep of UP seats and
except Punjab, it had wiped out its opponents in remaining 3 states too.

Before going into the winning factors which put BJP on success path, lets briefly
describe here the results of all 5 states along with party position.

UP (403 Punjab Goa Uttarakhand Manipur

) (117) (40) (70) (60)
BJP 325 18 14 57 21
INC - 77 18 11 28
SP+IN 56 - - - -
C
BSP 19 - - 0 -
AAP - 22 0 - -

From these results, it is evident that though BJP achieved absolute majority in UP
and Uttarakhand, but recent developments show that it is forming governments in
Goa and Manipur too, by coalitions with smaller groups. It is worth to mention here
that the Iron Lady Irom Sharmila, which was fasting since 16 years against the
AFSPA (the law that gives unlimited power to armed forces, and has been brutally
used in J&K too to suppress Kashmir Struggle) is defeated badly in Manipur by
securing only 90 votes. The irony with this Iron lady is that, even her family
disowned and people of Manipur too dejected her, alleging her to compromise with
government for which she compromised her precious 16 years of life, and sacrificed
her younger life, but at the end remained alone and facing betrayal charges by her
own people, causing her to leave from politics and live an aloof life.

Apart from all these aspects, the debate in political circles is about the isolation or
non representation of Muslims at parliamentary level, and this deprivation is
increased specially after UP election results. Though rigging charges are not leveled
from any circles other than Mayawati, who has blamed Electronic Voting machines
(EVMs), which in fact were used first time in these elections, as she claimed that it
was not possible for BJP to win those seats where more than 60% voters are
Muslims. But there are some opinions that recent law of triple talaq had played a
crucial factor, as the Muslim Women had voted BJP due to this law. But political
analysts and Electoral Monitoring NGOs claim that it is false assumption that
Muslims dont vote for BJP, as in Central Government election of 2014, 50% of UP
Muslims casted their vote for BJP and other 50% for Congress, and almost same
were the pre-election survey results conducted by an NGO. Justifying this claim, the
Muslims argue that it is BJP governments in which we are protected against riots, as
in other governments the probability of Hindu Muslim riots are higher.

So despite all allegations by its opponents, it has become fact that Modi factor is at
its peak, and by hook or crook, Modi successfully applying stick and carrot policy
where applicable, and utilizing social media platforms to attract young generation,
addressing masses directly, and connecting them with his natural style, envisaging
development models with strict financial policies opened his doors to success and
considering him almost unbeatable, at least within current scenario. But
conclusively there remain a question that will BJP survive without Modi?