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'Nobody is speaking up for Muslims today.'
'Secular parties too have calmed down because they feel this will hurt the Hindu vote (bank).'
'In this scenario, where does a Muslim go?'
Saleem Shervani, one of the prominent leaders of the Samajwadi Party, resigned as its general secretary after the party did not nominate a single Muslim member for last week's Rajya Sabha elections.
Shervani felt it was unjust on the part of SP President Akhilesh Yadav to not grant a Rajya Sabha ticket to a Muslim considering the fact that 80 percent of Uttar Pradesh's Muslims vote for the Samajwadi Party.
The party nominated Jaya Bachchan, Ramji Lal Suman and Alok Ranjan, of who the last mentioned was defeated by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
"Muslims want security. A Muslim man can feed his family with whatever means he has, but when his businesses are destroyed and his security is under threat, where will he go?", Shervani -- a businessman who was elected to the Lok Sabha from Badaun, UP, five times and served as a Union minister in the late 1990s -- asks Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com.
It is almost a month since you resigned as general secretary of the Samajwadi Party. What are you doing now?
I have not joined any other party and the reason I resigned from my post is because this year is a crucial year because of the 2024 elections.
The Samajwadi Party has been fighting for the cause of pichchda, Dalit and alpasankhak (PDA) classes. I was extremely unhappy with the three names for the Rajya Sabha that were declared by the SP. There was no pichchda and no Muslim name among them.
And when we are sending this message to the voters of our party, then we are making a mockery of our PDA slogan.
Are you still a part of the SP?
I met this morning with like-minded people from the Secular Front at a panchayat. There were lots of people who attended. I held this meeting in Badaun from where I was a member of Parliament. I said at the event that Muslims are desperately looking for leadership.
Today, if you speak on any Muslim issue, you are labelled as communal. This is the state when Muslims constitute 22 percent of Uttar Pradesh's population.
We are born in this country and will die in this country. We say that if there is a Muslim criminal who speaks against the interests of India give him punishment. We Muslims are with you, but you cannot put innocent Muslims in jail or bulldoze innocent Muslims' homes.
And if someone raises his voice on this issue they (the government) suppresses the voice.
I also said at the meeting that if I as a Muslim feel protected in India, the credit goes to the Hindus of India. Hindus of India make me feel secular and protected. And this secular fibre is being destroyed.
Does this Secular Front consist of different parties coming together on one platform?
This kind of alignment of parties has gone because elections are going to be announced shortly. All we can do now is to pick and choose candidates, and it does not matter which party that person belongs to.
We need to see that these people believe in secularism so you go out and try to help them.
Do you think Muslim votes matter in Uttar Pradesh because the BJP has proved twice -- in 2014 and 2019 -- that by not giving ticket to a single Muslim it can win elections so why bother?
Muslim votes do matter if they go one way. There are 22 percent Muslim votes in UP. Today, they have no voice as their vote goes three ways. It goes to the Bahujan Samaj Party, SP and Congress. Plus there is Asaduddin Owaisi who takes away some of their votes.
Muslims are destroying themselves by getting their votes split. What Muslims need to do is that they all must come together on one platform, no matter what platform.
Don't you think it is a problem with Muslim voters' thinking because they only vote to defeat the BJP?
Because Muslims are being lynched under their rule and their minister (Jayant Sinha, the current MP from Hazaribagh, Jharkhand) goes on to garland those men when they are out of jail. Where is the security for Muslims?
So if the Muslim reaction is to defeat the BJP, then it is the right reaction. Nobody is speaking up for Muslims today. Secular parties too have calmed down because they feel this will hurt the Hindu vote (bank).
In this scenario, where does a Muslim go?
But Muslims are going to the SP; in the 2022 assembly elections in UP, 80 percent of Muslims voted for the SP.
In this scenario you should have stuck to the party diktat rather than revolting, don't you think? Have you not weakened the SP by your stance?
No, I have not weakened the SP.
In the last assembly elections, as you rightly said, 80 percent of Muslims voted for the SP after which they started feeling neglected.
The SP is not speaking up when Muslim homes or mosques are being demolished. The party is not even making a statement.
Muslims of UP had by and large made up their mind to go with the Congress in the parliamentary elections. And the SP did a good thing by tying up with the Congress party.
Had they not tied up with the Congress, the 80 percent votes they got of Muslims in 2022 would have come down to 20 percent in 2024. Now Muslim votes will go en bloc to the vCongress-SP combine.
In the 2017 assembly elections, the SP and Congress had an alliance but that was a disaster as the BJP swept UP. How will things change now?
In 2017 rhere was hardly any understanding between these parties on the ground. There were 10 seats where the Congress and SP were fighting a friendly contest.
This is not the way to fight elections jointly. One has to be honest in a relationship and one has to ensure that there is no ego in the relationship.
Today, if there is any leader who is speaking up, it is Rahul Gandhi.
The media may not be speaking about his yatra or his meetings, the BJP tried very hard to destroy Rahul's image by branding him as Pappu, but he still went on in his fight against the BJP, all alone, relentlessly.
Nobody calls Rahul Gandhi a Pappu today.
Do you feel the Congress and Akhilesh not going for the pran pratishtha of the Ram temple was a message to Muslim voters?
The condition of Muslims in India is worse than that of Dalits. If you make a Muslim the captain of the Indian cricket team, a judge or army chief, it does not mean that you are appeasing them. Muslims want to live in peace and they want to have security.
That by not going to the Ayodhya programme they are appeasing Muslims is BJP propaganda.
If Muslim appeasement was done this would not have been the condition of Muslims today.
Muslims don't get jobs and security.
They cannot even speak in a loud voice, so what Muslim appeasement are we talking about?
As far as the Ram temple in Ayodhya is concerned, Modi stole the show and he did not allow even a BJP person to be present at the event.
If the condition of Muslims is bad, the Congress ruled the country for 60 years should be blamed, as it is only for the last 10 years that Modi has been in power.
Of course, the Congress has a lot to be blamed. The Congress did many studies on the Muslim community but never implemented anything from those studies.
Modi has been saying often that there is no discrimination against Muslims when it comes to governance. Isn't it true?
You cannot talk of Sabka Saath and Sabka Vikas by putting innocent Muslims behind bars.
Mosques of Muslims are being broken and torn down, as what happened in Haldwani.
Where does Sabka Saath and Sabka Vikas go at these times?
And when Muslims get lynched their ministers garland the lynch men.
The BJP has denied tickets to tJayant Sinha, Sadhvi Pragya and Ramesh Bidhuri who used slurs against Danish Ali in the Lok Sabha. Is that a message?
All this is fine, but today the time for words has gone, the time for action has come.
What must the BJP do to win over Muslim voters?
Muslims want security. A Muslim man can feed his family with whatever means he has, but when his businesses are destroyed and his security is under threat, where will he go?
In my speech today, I said if a Muslim raises the slogan 'La Ilaha Illallah Muhammadur Rasullallah' (there is only one God and Prophet Mohammed is his messenger), if a Muslim says this slogan to hurt someone, then even Allah will not accept this slogan. And if he says this slogan to find solace peacefully for himself, then Allah will accept his slogan.
Similarly, if you say Jai Shri Ram for your own peace and proximity to Ramji, then Lord Ram will accept your slogan. On the contrary you say Jai Shri Ram just to hurt someone from another community, then even Lord Ram will not accept your slogan.
If you are doing this, then you just want to get a reaction from the other community and spoil the relationship on the ground.
Lastly, why is Jaya Bachchan so important to the Samajwadi Party that she gets a Rajya Sabha ticket every six years? What does she bring to the table?
(Laughs) I don't know the answer. Politically, it does not make sense to me that Jaya Bachchan be given a Rajya Sabha ticket. What can she bring to the table for the SP? The answer is nothing.
Jaya Bachchan cannot bring one vote to the SP in UP. I too fail to understand what Jaya Bachchan brings to the SP or what was the compulsion for Akhilesh Yadav to give her a ticket.
It is only he who knows the truth. Had he given her a break for two years and given her a chance later I could have understood but giving her a Rajya Sabha ticket in an election year does not make sense to me at all.
Does Akhilesh unilaterally decide on Rajya Sabha candidates?
This is what happens in regional parties as there is one supremo and he decides. I was the national general secretary of the SP. but none of these things are ever discussed in the party.