The announcement by All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) led by Asaduddin Owaisi that he will contest the 2021 West Bengal elections has highlighted the crucial Muslim vote in the state. Critics of Owai say that AIMIM will end up dividing voters and thus help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which seeks to replace Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) in power.
Owai’s announcement about contesting the West Bengal elections on Tuesday came on the day that his party posted its best electoral performance outside of its Hyderabad stronghold by winning five seats in Bihar. Owaisi has alleged that Muslims faced neglect in the forced voting state.
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Muslims accounted for 27.01% of West Bengal’s population according to the 2011 census and the community plays a decisive role in 120 of the 294 assembly seats in the state, according to BJP and I-Pac surveys of the strategist. election Prashant Kishor. Banerjee joined Kishore for the 2021 election preparations after the BJP made great strides in the state by winning 18 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019.
Muslims are concentrated in the districts of Murshidabad (66.28%), Malda (51.27%), North Dinajpur (49.92%), South 24 Parganas (35.57%) and Birbhum (37.06%) in West Bengal. In Darjeeling, Purulia and Bankura, where the BJP won seats in Lok Sabha last year, Muslims make up less than 10% of the population.
A central AIMIM official said they were conducting a poll and will therefore make a final decision on the number of seats they will contest in Bengal. “We are collecting data for a ground-level investigation,” said the official who also campaigned in Bihar and did not want to be named.
TMC leader Saugata Roy said AIMIM is known as a party that splits Muslim votes to ultimately help the BJP. “Owaisi is a good MP who raises Islamic questions, but he will not be able to do anything in Bengal.” He called AIMIM a Hyderabad-based Urdu-speaking Muslim party. “Muslims in Bengal do not speak Urdu. It took Owaisi three tries to win five seats in Bihar. Don’t expect it to win seats in Bengal. “
The AIMIM official reacted to Roy’s comments and asked if Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Congress leader Rahul Gandhi spoke Bengali. And yet the BJP and Congress have won seats in Bengal. Our leaders on the ground will campaign and contest the elections in Bengal. They speak Bengali. “
The chairman of the BJP’s state minority front, Ali Hossain, dismissed suggestions that his party needs AIMIM to make a dent in the TMC’s Muslim vote bank. “It is a misperception that the TMC gets all the Muslim votes while the BJP is supported only by Hindus. The results of the 2019 Lok Sabha survey established that clearly. “
He said that in the Malda South constituency, where 64% of the people are Muslim, his Hindu candidate Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury won 40% of the vote and lost to Congress by a margin of just 8,000 votes. “Similarly, in the Jangipur constituency, where Muslims make up 82% of the population, the BJP’s first Muslim candidate, Mafuza Khatun, won 3.17,000 votes but lost to the TMC. Neither of these could have been possible if Muslims had not voted for the BJP. Where was AIMIM in 2019? Hossain asked.
Hossain said that the BJP will get between 5% and 10% of Muslim votes in 2021, even if AIMIM objects. “Our motto is that a BJP government is required in the interest of Muslims. Today 350 Muslim families joined our party at Ghatal in West Midnapore. Tomorrow, we will organize the largest Muslim rally of the BJP in Howrah, ”said Hossain.
The leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Md Salim, said that Owaisi cannot be a factor in Bengal politics unless he is promoted by the media and the BJP. “Hundreds of movements are taking place in Bengal, but the focus is on Owaisi. This is how the Gorkha leader, Subash Ghising, emerged in the Darjeeling hills in the 1980s and started the movement for a separate state, ”said Salim.
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