When it comes to minorities, the Congress and all its allies first take the name of Muslims. Although people of other religions of the minority community also live in the country, but political parties appeasing Muslims, especially the Congress, always talk only about Muslims in the name of minorities. Now once again the same tune has started that not even a single Muslim has been given representation in the NDA government. As far as minorities are concerned, the Modi government has given the opportunity to represent five minorities in the government. Kiren Rijiju and Ramdas Athawale have been made ministers from the Buddhist religion. Hardeep Puri and Ravneet Singh Bittu have been made ministers from the Sikh religion. George Kurien has been made a minister from the Christian religion.
The first question that arises here is that the political parties that are talking about Muslim appeasement should first tell which of those parties is a part of NDA. All the Muslim candidates who have won have won from those parties that fought the elections unitedly to defeat BJP. The name of the alliance was ‘Indi alliance’. When it comes to running the agenda, BJP is called anti-Muslim, Muslim votes are polarized, they are misled, so Muslims consider them their well-wishers and vote for those parties that curse BJP. The public did not trust the Indi alliance government, that is why NDA government was formed in the country.
The second question is that when it comes to taking, the first ones to be there are the people of the Muslim community. There is no discrimination against anyone in government schemes. But when it comes to giving, all kinds of tricks are used to polarize Muslim votes so that BJP does not get even a single vote. For example, at a polling booth in a village in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, where 100% voters are Muslims, a total of 2322 votes were cast. Here 532 houses have been given under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. BJP did not get a single vote at this polling booth. Here SP candidate Mohibullah won by 87 thousand 434 votes. When it was a matter of taking the benefits of government schemes, Muslims were also given benefits here, but when it came to voting in the elections, BJP did not get a single vote.
Let us tell you that in the 18th Lok Sabha, 24 Muslim candidates have reached the Parliament by winning the elections. In this Lok Sabha elections, 78 Muslim candidates were in the fray. Out of 24, 21 MPs are from India Alliance. In which the maximum 7 MPs are from Congress. Trinamool Congress has 05 Muslim MPs. Samajwadi Party has 04, Indian Union Muslim League has 03 and National Conference has 02 MPs. Apart from India Alliance, one Muslim MP of AIMIM is Asaduddin Owaisi who won from Hyderabad. Apart from this, Engineer Rashid from Baramulla of Jammu & Kashmir and Mohammad Hanifa from Ladakh have also reached the Parliament by winning.
BSP had fielded 19 Muslim candidates in Uttar Pradesh. All of them lost the elections. All the Muslim votes went in favour of the SP and Congress alliance. SP won 37 seats in UP, why? After the results, even the BSP supremo, who had given tickets to the maximum number of Muslim candidates, had to say that in future she will give tickets to Muslims after careful consideration. Earlier also BSP has had many Muslim MPs, but this time why did all the Muslim votes shift from BSP’s account to Congress’ account?
Political analysts believe that the opposition has created such a perception about BJP that BJP is not a good party for Muslims. But this is not the case at all. Muslims are misled and their votes are taken from them. This has been happening continuously since independence. Muslims have been used only as a vote bank. The same happened this time as well. As a result, the entire Muslim vote bank of BSP shifted to the account of SP and Congress. This is not just about UP but it becomes important to discuss UP here because UP has the maximum number of Lok Sabha seats.
Similarly, if we talk about West Bengal, here too Muslims voted one-sidedly for Trinamool Congress, as a result Trinamool Congress won 29 seats here. Five Muslim MPs of Trinamool have won. Now if this is not called polarization of Muslim votes, then what should it be? Similarly, in Assam, all the 3 seats on which Congress has won are Muslim majority. Obviously, here too there was polarization of Muslim votes. The purpose was clear to defeat BJP, but people’s trust still remained and NDA government was formed for the third time in the country. The journalists, political parties and their leaders who advocate Muslim representation in the government will have to first of all abandon the politics of polarization and talk about Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas.
Disclaimer: The above views are the personal views of the author.