Muslim mind-set in Rampur

UTTAR PRADESH

Amitabh Shukla

Rampur, January 29

Made famous by the Bollywood movies for its knives, daggers are literally drawn between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidates here.

Arch rivals in the local politics, Congress candidate Afroz Ali Khan and the SP candidate Muhammd Azam Khan are engaged in one of the fiercest contest in the area. Both have faced each other five times, the Congress candidate could win only in the last election. However, even for the SP candidate, the victories in the past have been least convincing with margins below one thousand on each occasion.

The psyche and the political inclination of the Muslims too are to be tested in this constituency. Here almost 70 percent of the population is Muslim and the remaining 30 Hindu. This equation has thrown several Muslim candidates and the caste equation of the 30 percent Hindus has become topsy-turvy.

One of the few Congress strongholds in the state due to the influence of the local MP Begum Noor Bano of the Congress, the Muslims here are a bewildered lot spoilt for choices due to a large number of candidates from their community.

While the Congress candidate in wooing them with his avowed secularism, the SP candidate is banking on the creation of “insecurity complex” amongst the community. He has told his electorate that persecution of the minorities would intensify due to POTO. He has also brought in the Kashmir angle and told the electorate that youths are being “targeted” by the government.

To top it all, he said that even the “beards of the Muslims are not safe” if the BJP comes to power in the state.

The radicalism of the Muslim mind was all the more evident with the nomination of Muslim League candidate Shifat Ali Khan. Playing to the gallery, he has literally promised “jannat” (heavens) of the Islamic law to his constituency.

“The Muslims of the area cannot be fooled with communal slogans,” said the Congress candidate Afroz Ali Khan. He said that instead of developmental issues, the communal candidates are looking for short term gains. His attack is focused on both the BJP and the SP. “Both the parties are communal in this constituency,” says his election in-charge Shakeel Ahmed Khan.

“The Muslims here are bewildered,” said Mohd Nissar, a school-teacher. He said that while the lower class Muslims are being attracted by SP, the secular and the middle class of the community is favouring the Congress. “In the contest of the Muslim candidates, if the BJP Supported Lok Dal candidate wins, it will be the community which will be a loser,” says the middle-aged teacher. (2002)

Token fight for opponents of Sonia and Rahul in polls

Amitabh Shukla / PTI / Amethi/Rae Bareli April 10, 2009

In the pocketborough of the Gandhi-Nehru family, the race for the opponents of the Congress is not to emerge as a winner in the Lok Sabha polls but to get the second position.

The two constituencies of Amethi and Rae Bareli, which are adjacent, have been the stronghold of the first political family of the country for decades, so much so that for the opponents the result appears to be a foregone conclusion and the electoral battle just a token fight.

While Congress President Sonia Gandhi is contesting her third election from Rae Bareli, her son and AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi is contesting his second election from Amethi.

Caste, community, occupational and communal lines have blurred in the two constituencies in the name of what the locals call as "family" and even the opponents admit that it is only "tokenism" when they take on the two heavyweights.

Ironically, in the assembly elections when the Gandhis do not contest, the caste and communal lines again play an important role though the Congress has an upper hand.

In the five assembly segments of Amethi seat, Congress has only three segments under it while the remaining two were shared by SP and BSP. Of the five assembly segments in Rae Bareli, Congress has four MLAs while one is represented by an Independent.

"The curiosity in both the Lok Sabha seats is to know who comes second and what will be the victory margin of the Gandhis," said Ramdhan Singh, a block-level Congress leader from Maharajganj area.

In both the constituencies, SP has not put up any candidate but both BSP and BJP have their nominees in place.

BSP candidate in Amethi Ashish Shukla is campaigning on the issue of "fearless and corruption free administration", something which the people of the constituency are not buying.

Shukla, a former Congressman, left the party when Congress admitted Sanjay Singh and his wife Amrita Singh in the party.

BJP candidate Pradeep Singh is toeing the lines of party's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani in his campaign. The presence of both in the constituency is minimal with only Congress flags fluttering atop most of the houses.

Rae Bareli has R B Singh of BJP and R S Kushwaha of BSP to give a fight to Sonia Gandhi. "We will bring development to the area," says Kushwaha in his public meetings but there is hardly any taker for such promises with the voters enamoured with the "family".

Rae Bareli has an interesting political past where the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi lost the polls to socialist leader Raj Narain in the aftermath of the Emergency in 1977.

She won the seat in the 1980 elections but vacated it, preferring to keep Medak constituency in Andhra Pradesh. In the bye-elections, her nominee Arun Nehru won the polls and retained it in 1984.

Another family nominee Sheila Kaul was given the party nomination in 1989 and 1991, she won both times.

The Congress was at the receiving end in the next two elections in 1996 and 1998 when its candidates Vikram Kaul and Deepa Kaul lost the polls to BJP candidate Ashok Singh.

Tides turned in favour of Congress when Priyanka Gandhi campaigned for the first time in the 1999 elections for party candidate Satish Sharma, ensuring his victory.

Political parties trying caste formula magic in eastern UP

Amitabh Shukla/PTI in Varanasi
April 9 2009

With stakes high in eastern Uttar Pradesh, the Congress is desperately trying to get the magical caste formula of the past, which saw it getting the lion's share of votes till 20 years ago.

In a rally in this temple city last Sunday, Congress President Sonia Gandhi invoked the name of the late Brahmin leader Kamlapati Tripathi, who was once the chief minister of the state and also a Union minister for several years, to woo back the community it has lost in the recent years.

In an apparent bid to woo the minorities, she also referred to the plight of the weaving community (Muslims) who have been hit hard in recent years with machines and power looms replacing artisans in large numbers.

The Congress organised a function recently in Delhi also in the memory of Tripathi, whom it has now reinvented as a tall Brahmin leader, whose name could be used politically to counter the social engineering of the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party.

The BSP's social engineering has witnessed the Mayawati-led party appropriate the traditional Congress vote bank comprising Dalits, Muslims and Brahmins. It led to the BSP coming to power on its own for the first time in the 2007 assembly election.

Varanasi is a constituency which has a sizeable Brahmin votes and the Congress has pitted sitting MP Rajesh Mishra against the Bharatiya Janata Party's Murli Manohar Joshi.

In the fight between the two Brahmin leaders, the BSP's Mukhtar Ansari and the Samajwadi Party's Ajay Rai are putting up a decent fight turning the prestigious seat in a four-cornered contest.

While Mishra, in his meetings, describes Joshi as a "leader imported from Allahabad", Joshi's supporters are projecting the former Union minister as the "messiah" for the temple city who has come only to revive its lost glory. He is also being described by his supporters as a "Brahmin and a Hindu icon" in a move to win back the influential community to the BJP fold.

Ansari, incarcerated in jail due to his alleged role in a murder, has a criminal past, but his supporters are mobilising the weaver community (Ansaris) and the other Muslims to thwart the ambitions of the Congress, BJP and SP.

Rai, a sitting MLA, who was once in the BJP, is banking on a publicity blitzkrieg and is prominent on the local FM radio channels, promising many good things for the people of the ancient and holy town on the banks of the Ganges.

In the wake of the Ram Janambhoomi controversy, the BJP won four consecutive Lok Sabha elections from here -- 1991 1996, 1998 and 1999. The Congress's Mishra broke the BJP's winning streak in 2004.

Promising to be an interesting contest where all tested permutations and combinations are being tried -- caste, community, religion and local issues -- the result will determine whose call was right and touched the heart of the million plus voters.
(April 9, 2009)