With its political space among Muslims under threat from the more aggressive All-India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen's (AIMIM), the Samajwadi Party (SP) is looking at the emotional issue of reservations for the community to stage a comeback.
With its political space among Muslims under threat from the more aggressive All-India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen's (AIMIM), the Samajwadi Party (SP) is looking at the emotional issue of reservations for the community to stage a comeback.
The party is holding rallies to press for the quota demand and has undertaken a campaign to collect 1 lakh signatures.
"The Muslim reservation campaign will help us re-build our base," said a senior SP leader. He added that successive committees, such as those under justice Rajinder Sachar, Ranganath Mishra and Mehmood-ur-Rehman, had pointed to backwardness among Muslims, who comprise over 10.6% of Maharashtra's population.
The SP leader admitted that with them losing a significant chunk of support among Muslims, especially the youths, to the AIMIM, the quota issue was a strong plank to regain lost ground, especially for the BMC polls due early 2017.
In the assembly elections, SP state chief Abu Asim Azmi, who has found himself in controversy in the past over his polarising, incendiary speeches, was the only candidate who could sail through as compared to its 2009 tally of four seats.
The AIMIM plans to contest the civic polls in an alliance with Dalit outfits.
Despite protests by the Shiv Sena, AIMIM president and Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi addressed a rally in Pune, seeking Muslim quotas. The AIMIM managed a spectacular debut in the assembly polls last year by winning two Muslim-dominated seats, indicating massive unrest against "secular" parties like the Congress.
The AIMIM also plans to take on the SP on its home turf of Uttar Pradesh in the assembly polls.
"Muslims lack intellectual leadership... youths are disconnected from mainstream political parties, have no stable political ideology and are hence shifting to the AIMIM as they perceive it as aggressive," another SP leader claimed.
Speaking to dna, Azmi, an MLA from Mankhurd-Shivajinagar, attacked the erstwhile Congress-NCP led state government for approving the Muslim quota ordinance only when it felt that a defeat in the assembly polls was imminent. He blamed the BJP-Sena government for dragging its feet on the issue.
"Our mistake was joining hands with the Congress in the past to strengthen the so-called secular vote and keep the BJP-Sena alliance out. This led to us being seen as being close to the Congress, and considering the anger against the party, this cost us dear. We did not anticipate that the AIMIM would come forward as an alternative to us," admitted an SP leader. He added that, however, they had no intention of getting back into the politics of polarisation as this failed in the long run.
"The AIMIM did not cut any ice where the local Muslim leadership was strong," claimed the SP leader, pointing to how the party had been defeated in Mumbra, Chandivli and Mankhurd-Shivajinagar.
Quota controversy
In November 2014, the Bombay High Court (HC) stayed the erstwhile Congress-NCP government's 16% quota for Marathas and 5% reservation in jobs for Muslims, while not staying quotas for Muslims in education.
In the winter session, the Devendra Fadnavis-led government passed a Bill for Maratha reservations while not tabling a legislation for similar benefits to Muslims as they were taking legal advice. The ordinance on affirmative action for Muslims lapsed in January.
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