Owaisi’s entry into UP politics may upset Muslim vote apple cart

The entry of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi into the political arena of Uttar Pradesh appears to pose a threat to some major political parties which have thrived so far essentially on the strength of the Muslim vote.

With Owaisi not mincing words in questioning the genuine secular credentials of such parties, he was being looked at with much scepticism, particularly by the ruling Samajwadi Party, which has somehow – post Babri Masjid demolition – considered its claim over the Muslim vote as some kind of birthright.

Now with Owaisi busy asking why the SP has been taking Muslims for granted, the party has found another way of attacking him - by terming him as a “Narendra Modi agent”, whose main agenda is to divide the Muslim vote. And that itself conveys that the young sherwani-clad, skull cap-donning Hyderabad-based Muslim leader is now changing the way conventional parties have exploited the Muslim vote.

Unlike smaller regional parties that usually prefer to make their debut in the politics of another state through the state Assembly route, the AIMIM has chosen the more practical path – panchayat elections which began on October 9 and would conclude by the end of the month.

In fact, well before the state election commission announced dates for the panchayat elections in the country’s most populous state, the AIMIM made it a point to be seen on ground zero. With Owaisi having already done some spadework, he did not waste time in announcing his decision to contest some 50 panchayat seats. Sure enough, it was aimed at paving the way for the party to make its entry into the state’s Assembly election fray in 2017.

The names of 44 candidates were already announced and contrary to the common impression that the party was just a Muslim outfit, Owaisi has made it a point to field a dozen Hindus. “We have picked up essentially Dalits, who I feel are as deprived as Muslims”, Owaisi told this scribe over a telephonic conversation on October 9.

Owaisi did not try spreading his wings across the length and breadth of the sprawling state at the very outset. Instead, he has chosen to remain pragmatic and limit himself to certain pockets of both eastern and western Uttar Pradesh, where the Muslim population is dominant. Areas with high Dalit population have also been tapped very selectively.

The party has fielded the maximum number of (ten) candidates from Azamgarh, which is the parliamentary constituency of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and has a 74-member panchayat. Evidently, Owaisi’s aim is to tear into Mulayam’s self projection as the ultimate “messiah” of Muslims, whose support over the decades has scripted the SP’s success story.

The AIMIM chief pointed out, “I simply wish to draw the attention of people of this state to certain facts which will automatically dispel this falsely created impression that Samajwadi Party or its president was the 'true protector or messiah of Muslims'.”

And with that he went on to cite statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report which shows the sharp rise in communal incidents during the Samajwadi Party regime over the last three-and-a-half years. And that would be his key message to Muslims who, he feels, have been taken for granted by Mulayam and party. “It is only for the Muslim vote that Mulayam does all the lip service, but when it comes to really doing something, he cannot look beyond Yadavs,” quipped Owaisi, while citing the much debated nomination of a retired High Court judge for a new Lok Ayukta. “Four times, the chief justice objected to the same Yadav name being sent by the UP chief minister, who could never think of any retired Muslim judge,” he pointed out.

A top SP leader sought to dismiss Owaisi as just another “vote katua” or someone whose aim was to eat into the votes of others. However, the same leadership went out of its way to disallow the AIMIM chief from holding a single rally anywhere in Uttar Pradesh, which reflects their inner apprehensions.

Despite the odds, Owaisi appears to have made some inroads by setting up his party units in several places in the state. Significantly, the newly named AIMIM state chief Shaukat Ali hails from Mulayam’s constituency, Azamgarh, where even a small dent in the Muslim vote bank would mean a blow to the SP.

In the post-Congress era, particularly since Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati was looked at with suspicion following her three-time alignment with BJP, the bulk of the Muslim vote has been going to the SP. Therefore, Owaisi’s key target was the SP and he was clearly working on bigger plans to embarrass Mulayam and the SP government’s most prominent Muslim face and senior minister Azam Khan. “Azam Khan saheb may be busy seeking United Nations’ intervention to ensure safety and security of Muslims in UP, but I would want to know from him whether it is the UN’s job to maintain law and order in UP or it is that of his government,” said Owaisi.

“If life of Muslims is not secure in Uttar Pradesh, then who other than the Samajwadi Party government is answerable? And if Azam feels that Muslims are not secure under his government, he should resign instead of doing the melodrama of shooting off letters to UN. Furthermore, Mulayam Singh Yadav who has not only been chief minister three times but also the country’s defence minister, ought to be knowing that if Muslims were not secure in his son Akhilesh Yadav-ruled state (sic), then the government had failed to fulfil its constitutional obligations. So there was no point in him covering it up through all kinds of alibi,” he roared.

“I would also like to ask Mulayam about the promises he has been making to Muslims – providing reservation in jobs and withdrawing cases against the Muslim youth falsely implicated in terror incidents,” Owaisi warned.

He also has an answer to the oft-repeated accusation that he was "BJP plant". “Well, if I become a BJP plant by contesting just six of the 243 Assembly seats in Bihar, then what is Mulayam Singh Yadav who has fielded candidates on each of the 243 seats in a state where SP is of no consequence,” he asked. “I would also like to know how and why Mulayam failed to ensure victory of a single Muslim nominee at the 2014 Lok Sabha election in UP, where the BJP grabbed as many as 71 of the 80 seats and its ally also got two, while SP’s winners were only the five family members of Mulayam Singh Yadav,” he added.

Owaisi also accuses the Yadavs of rarely supporting Muslim candidates, even as, according to him, Mulayam has always ensured the full backing of Muslims for his Yadav nominees. How the SP supremo, who once acquired the sobriquet of “Maulana Mulayam”, would answer these questions remains a million dollar question. But whether Owaisi would be able to wean away any meaningful chunk of the precious Muslim vote or he would only end up splitting it to eventually give the BJP an edge was something that time would tell.