Weighing their options carefully between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, the Muslims — largely consisting of artisans and farmers — who feel let down by the BSP, seem inclined towards the former.
Trying hard to stage a strong comeback in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress seems to have revived interest among the Muslims of Purvanchal through ample sprinkling of Rahul Gandhi’s tours and electoral promises. Yet, these may not be enough to translate into votes.
Weighing their options carefully between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, the Muslims — largely consisting of artisans and farmers — who feel let down by the BSP, seem inclined towards the former.
Along with Muslims farmers, the slowly shrinking community of artisans — consisting mainly of Muslim weavers — that has a strong presence in the Varanasi-Azamgarh- Mau-Bhadohi region is still not confident of backing the Congress because of past experience.
Besides the BJP, they still blame the ineptitude of the Narasimha Rao-led Congress government for Babri mosque demolition, which wrecked their social and business relations and hit their trade badly.
“Post Babri period changed our lives; the Hindu-Muslim camaraderie gave way to animosity during the BJP regime. We were systematically harmed as Hindu traders stopped buying Banarasi sarees from us,” says Yahya Ansari sitting idle on his ancestral handloom in Lohutta.
The deliberately reduced demand pushed in cheaper powerloom products forcing weavers to cut down production of Banarasi silk sarees and pushing them towards penury.
“Many weavers have been forced to pull rickshaw or do farm labour. Thousands are suffering under debt,” says Mohammad Isa Ansari watching his son Mohammad Waseem who does zardozi (embroidery) work after school hours to help the family.
These harsh realities have made the artisans look at the sops of minority reservations and loan waiver package for weavers offered by Congress with interest and suspicion.
“Good that the Congress is trying to bridge the divide by paying attention to Muslim’s issues but why does it happen during elections only? Compared to them, Mulayam understands us better; he left Kalyan Singh and brought in Azam Khan,” says Shamsuddin Ansari in Mubarakpur.
Prof DGA Khan of Banaras Hindu University has a different take on it. “Muslims know the reality of poll sops. If the Congress is so conscious of Muslims’ plight why has it not implemented Sachar committee’s recommendations? Similarly, Muslims have not forgotten Halla Bol and monopoly of Yadavs during the SP rule. They will vote for better candidate and not party,” he adds.
Another major disadvantage for the Congress is that it does not have strong mass Muslim leaders in UP who can walk the talk with community and bring them back to its fold, nor does the party have a strong chief ministerial candidate like the SP to enthuse confidence among Muslims.
However, these ground realities have not stopped the Congress from wooing Muslims, as it knows that given the possible split in the BSP vote share of Sarv Samaj which won it 79 out of the 150 seats in 2007, even a little change in Muslims votes is capable of swinging results in several assembly segments and putting it back on the road of revival.
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