The dilemma of UP’s Muslim voters

prepare for celebration

Sultan is coming from Hyderabad

(Get ready for the festivities, Samrat is coming from Hyderabad)

It’s February 11. The AIMIM is leaving no stone unturned to get every detail before Owaisi landed here the next day. Local party in-charge Syed Aslam is busy preparing the rally ground at Azad Girls Inter College in the city. The land is so big that 10,000 people can sit in it.

The party members did not agree on where to place the stage. While Aslam suggested placing the stage in one corner of the field, some others wanted the stage to be in the middle of the field, facing the houses across the street. His reasoning was that people would gather on the roofs to have a glimpse of the AIMIM leader.

In a nearby street, a man with a gray beard, dressed in a kurta-pyjama and cap, leans on his bike as he tries to persuade four others to vote for AIMIM. According to him, this will “ensure the community’s share in politics”. However, four people were not convinced.

One of them—39-year-old Mohammad Rais, who works in a local transport business—says: “The sentiments are with Owaisi, but the votes will be for the Samajwadi Party (SP).

Voting will be held in Sambhal assembly constituency today. It is a Muslim-majority seat with an estimated 60% or more of the electorate being from the community.

The current member of the Legislative Assembly, Iqbal Mahmood, is from the SP and has been elected five times since 1996. In 2017, he won by over 19,000 votes, receiving a third of the votes. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Dr Arvind was the runner-up with 25% votes, while AIMIM got 24.8% votes. In this election season, Iqbal Mehmood will face BJP’s Rajesh Singhal and AIMIM’s Mohd Musheer Khan Tarin. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Indian National Congress (INC) have also fielded Muslim candidates from the Sambhal constituency.

Many political scientists and election experts argue that Muslims are not able to elect many leaders of their community as votes are often divided, which benefits the BJP. For example, in Sambhal, the AIMIM may eat away the SP’s share.

While UP, overall, has a Muslim population of around 19%, the state contested 403 seats in 2017 and fielded only 24 Muslim candidates. It is only 6%. This was significantly lower than in 2012 when 67 Muslims were elected—for the first time ever, Muslim representation at 17% approached a population share of 19%.

Will it be different this time? The results will come in March but for now let’s see what history tells us.

Split or Consolidation?

The Moradabad (urban) seat next to Sambhal has 45-50% Muslim population – a typical example of the thesis that divided voting benefits the BJP.

In 2017, BJP candidate Ritesh Kumar Gupta won here by only 3,000 votes. He got 44.7% votes, while his Muslim runner-up Mohammad Yusuf Ansari from SP got 43.6% votes. Around 9 per cent votes went to the BSP candidate.

An analysis by Sanjay Kumar of the Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) shows that in the 2017 assembly elections, the BJP won 12 out of 30 seats where the Muslim population was 40% or more. The SP recorded its best strike in the last election, capturing 14 seats in such constituencies. The Congress, which had contested the last election in alliance with the SP, won two seats, while the BSP won just one.

Estimates suggest that the SP-Congress alliance got 70% of the Muslim vote overall in the state. Even though the SP-INC managed to consolidate Muslim votes, the BJP did a better job of consolidating Hindu votes. The consolidation of Muslim votes was, in fact, not enough for the SP-Congress to win seats, even where Muslims constitute 30-39% of the population. Out of 43 such seats, BJP won 42.

Since splitting a small vote share can change the outcome, the Muslim vote will see more strength this time around.

“This election will see a very rapid polarization of Muslim voters in favor of the SP, which is much higher than in the previous elections,” says Kumar. Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh’s grandson Jayant Chaudhary- thinks he can win by consolidation of Jat, Yadav and Muslim votes. “The minority community knows that this time they have to choose the party which can win the state,” he said.

Meanwhile, Congress flags are hanging from several balconies on the streets of Moradabad’s Lajpat Nagar. Priyanka Gandhi recently did a road show. “If a party worker requests to put up a flag, you can’t say clearly,” explains a local reason.

Here SP, Congress, BSP and AIMIM have fielded Muslim candidates.

“It is a duel between BJP and SP here. However, Rizwan Qureshi (Congress) will also get a few thousand votes.” Attendance could prove costly for the SP candidate who lost by a small margin in the last election.

Around noon at the Congress office in Moradabad, Qureshi’s wife had started a march of burqa-clad women, who were distributing pamphlets seeking votes for the Congress. The roads were almost empty. It was Friday and people were offering namaz in the mosque.

22-year-old Fazal Haq goes to the Biryani shop after offering Namaz. He is preparing for medical entrance exam while pursuing his graduation in science. He also oversees the pharmaceutical and hospital business of his family in the city after his father’s death.

There is widespread inflation but Fazal does not consider price rise to be an issue in this election. If prices go up, so will wages, they reason. “You and I know that only communalism is being practiced,” he adds. “The Imam tried to explain to us in a nutshell: we are all Muslims here, but our votes get divided.”

silent voter

Outside the main road, inside a dirty lane, 71-year-old Mohammad Rais sits in his small grocery store. Raees has been casting votes for the last 50 years.

“I have never benefited from any government, so I cannot say which government is better or worse,” he says, laughing at welfare schemes like the piped water scheme. Tap water has been available for generations, so what’s so new here?”

They have not yet decided who to vote for and will decide on the day of voting. Voters like him are called ‘swing voters’ by political scientists because they can swing either way during campaigning or on polling day. Past evidence suggests that they vote for the party that appears to be winning. Raees has no hesitation in voting for BJP if it is winning that day. In fact, in 2017 he voted for BJP because he wanted to try a new party. His reaction to whether Muslims voted for the BJP or not is an emphatic yes.

Ayub Ansari (40) and Parvez Ansari (30), both famous for the business of brass handicrafts Moradabad is famous for, have also not decided on their vote yet. He said that he is so busy with his daily work that he cannot pay attention to the publicity. They are residents of Moradabad (Rural). This is another constituency where the Muslim vote share is more than the urban part.

Like Raees, Ayub Ansari is also indifferent to both party politics and the issue of communalism. Asked whether there was increasing discord between Hindu and Muslim communities, he said nothing has changed in his relations with Hindu families living in the neighbourhood. Besides, goodwill lies in day-to-day transactions, he added.

What do the Muslim vote figures tell us for the BJP? The CSDS analysis shows that 5% and 8% of Muslims voted for the BJP in the 2017 assembly elections and the 2019 general elections, respectively. Interactions with people in Moradabad and Sambhal suggest that there may be three groups of Muslims who vote for the BJP.

The first group is Shia Muslims. There have been reports of Shia and Bahá’í Muslims’ support for the BJP in the past as well. Shia Muslims are few in Moradabad, but they have a large population in Lucknow.

Another group of Muslim voters of the BJP elects the candidate, not the party. They vote because of their personal relationship with the candidate. Waseem Ahmed (32), a brass scrap dealer, favors the BJP as his friend is a member of the BJP’s minority cell. He also shares cordial relations with Moradabad Nagar MLA Ritesh Kumar Gupta.

He believes that the BJP’s animosity towards Muslims is well-known and obvious, unlike some other parties that prefer veiled attacks on the community. “You can stop the one coming from the front. How do you stop someone from behind?” he asks.

In Sambhal, wearing a saffron jacket and cap, BJP’s Muslim campaigner Abdul Hakim says that even extremely backward class Muslims vote for BJP. He said that he has got the benefit of the welfare schemes of the Prime Minister. He showed pictures of houses built for Muslims under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, a central government scheme for affordable housing.

Yashwant Deshmukh, founder-editor of CVoter Research, also supports this thesis. “A large part of the lower part of the pyramid is owned by Muslims. They have benefited from delivery and cash transfer schemes and are the ones who vote for BJP.”

However, a cleric from a big mosque in Moradabad said that the BJP does not even reach out to the Muslims to consider the party as an alternative.

beyond this choice

This brings us back to Asaduddin Owaisi and his growing appeal. He may not do well this season, but the people of this region are looking optimistic about his prospects going forward.

Mohammad Hashim (25) is coming from Hapur to Moradabad, about 100 km away, in connection with business. He says that AIMIM may not win, but will give a good fight in about a dozen seats in UP. “AIMIM may make a comeback in future. If you send a guest away with a gift, he will come back,” says Hashim, Pithli. “SP is compulsion, AIMIM is the favourite,” say three brass workers in their early 30s. One says that he will support SP for the last time.

What explains Owaisi’s appeal among Muslims?

“He is a barrister, highly educated, and speaks within constitutional lines. Is there any Member of Parliament who makes such an argument for Muslims? Can someone tear down the CAA bill like he did?,” asks Mohammed Raees of Sambhal.

Owaisi could have forged alliances with big Muslim leaders in UP to increase his chances of success, some felt. But, both Muslims who follow politics closely and Owaisi and his team will know that politics is never a one-day game. Especially when many in this constituency still remain apprehensive – as the loud speaker declares, he is the “Sultan of Hyderabad”, an outsider from the North Indian state.

“We were excited to choose Mohammad Azharuddin (former Indian cricket captain) as our Member of Parliament in 2009, but he never showed up after the victory,” says a waiter at Gulshan-e-Karim, a restaurant in Moradabad. “In 2019, we rectified our mistake and elected ST Hasan from SP for Lok Sabha. At least we could have caught him if needed.”

Now the question in everyone’s mind is whether Owaisi will return after the elections are over?