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Which way will the 'Muslim votebank' vote?

Sudhir Kumar in New Delhi

With mainstream parties dusting their secularist props to attract Muslim votes in the last election of the millennium, the 120-million-strong minority community has once again become a much-wooed political entity.

Touted as a decisive factor in the Indian politics, the phenomenon of the Muslim votebank has become particularly relevant in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal where 55 per cent of the community is concentrated. One in every nine voters in India is a Muslim, according to the 1991 census, and their voting preferences can make or mar the fortunes of contestants in more than a hundred constituencies.

With the Third Front in a shambles, it is the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress -- the two major claimants to power -- and their allies, which are jostling with each other in offering a new deal to the Muslims. While the Congress is trying to exorcise the ghost of Ayodhya's aftermath to put its secular credentials on the front-burner, the BJP has offloaded the Hindutva plank from its ideological baggage in the quest of political plurality.

In as many as 82 constituencies, spread over 13 states and the Union territory of Lakshadweep, Muslims account for more than 20 per cent of the voters. They constitute more than 15 per cent of the voters in 118 constituencies.

Of these 82 constituencies, Uttar Pradesh accounts for 33, followed by West Bengal with 18, Bihar 9, Kerala 8, Jammu and Kashmir 3, Karnataka and Maharashtra 2 each and Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Lakshadweep one each, according to a UNI-C voter analysis.

Amidst the claims and counter-claims of the parties, Muslim voters are, however, sharply aware of a disconcerting fact: their representation in the Lok Sabha has been dwindling over the years. From a representation of 36 Muslim MPs in the first Parliament (1952-57), it decreased to 27 in 1998 (12th lok Sabha) after reaching a high of 46 in 1980-84. In terms of percentage of the total membership in the House, it was 7.27 per cent in 1952-57, 8.50 in 1980-84 and 4.99 in 1998.

More important is the fact that contrary to the popular notion, Muslims are not a homogenous electoral group. Rather, they have plumped for tactical voting to inflict defeats on candidates and parties which they perceive to be their 'enemies. It is this phenomenon of tactical voting that has made all the major parties bend over backwards while offering an olive branch to the Muslim electorate.

''Our principal adversary is really the BJP. Not only the BJP, but also those rabidly fanatical organisations that are sustaining the party,'' Congress president Sonia Gandhi told an election meeting. ''Secularism is a fight for the very soul of India and for rescuing it from the the merchants of hate,'' adds a party veteran.

In its manifesto, the party has promised to set up a high-level committee on representation of minorities in public services and government agencies, amend the Constitution to establish a commission for minority educational institutions and vigorously implement the Protection of Place of Worship Act, 1991. It has also promised to bring in a legislation to prevent violation of the Muslim Personal Law.

In the last election, the Congress even tendered apologies to the minority community for its failure to protect the Babri Masjid from being desecrated by the ''BJP and RSS zealots.'' Whatever had happened on December 6, 1992 was a ''tragedy of history'', party leader Madhavrao Scindia had said. The Congress even denied ticket to former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao, in an apparent attempt to woo Muslims.

Despite all this, the party drew a blank in Uttar Pradesh, the epicentre of Muslim fury against the Congress, prompting it to appoint Salman Khurshid as the UP party chief last year.

Offering the promise of a ''riot-free'' country and a responsible administration alive to the concerns of the minorities is the BJP. The party, which was once shunned as a political pariah, is now a weighty contender to power.

''There is a moratorium on all contentious issues,'' announced BJP spokesman Jaswant Singh on August 16 at the release of the 10-page National Democratic Alliance manifesto. And Prime Minister A B Vajpayee, to shore up his penchant for liberal-pluralist policies, added: ''This is a first, very definite step. We will ensure these issues are not raised.''

For years, the bedrock of the BJP's campaigns has been issues that are capable of swaying the country's 800-million plus Hindus: abrogation of Article 370; providing autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir; construction of a Ram Temple at Ayodhya; and evolving a common civil code.

While appealing to the minorities to put aside their old prejudices, the NDA manifesto assured the government's commitment to share the hopes and anxieties of the people and work with them as partners, irrespective of class, caste and religion. ''The NDA is a political arm of none other than the Indian people as a whole. No one will be cast aside...We will truly and genuinely uphold and practise the concept of secularism consistent with the tradition of sarva panth samadara (equal respect for all faiths).''

With the Third Front in a complete disarray, the Congress now claims that Muslims are returning to its fold, and the party is basing its calculations on the support of various Muslim bodies. Though the Jama Masjid consultative working committee at its meeting said the Congress should not take the support of Muslims for granted, the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Hind, an influential body of Muslim clerics, has supported the party.

''At the national level the Congress is the only party capable of checking the advance of the BJP. To talk about a Third Front is wishful thinking,'' Jamiat leaders said.

Similarly, the All-India Milli Political Forum, a political platform for the Muslims not connected with any political party, holds that the Muslims should ''defeat the forces of communalism, fascism and jingoism.''

Except in Kerala, where the large Muslim populace has generally voted for the Indian Union Muslim League, the community's votes tend to get divided among various parties. Thus, certain sections of the minority community are likely to vote for various constituents of the NDA like the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, according to analysts.

The Congress is particularly desperate to woo Muslims in UP which was once its stomping ground. The party, which failed to win even one seat in the state in the 1998 poll, argues that the Samajwadi Party, which has been enjoying Muslim support for a decade now, would lose in the state for its failure to install a non-BJP regime at the Centre after the Vajpayee government lost the no-confidence vote.

An unruffled Mulayam Singh Yadav, the SP chief, however, is reminding the Muslims of the Congress' failure in preventing the demolition of the Babri mosque and the Bahujan Samaj Party's support to the BJP twice during government formation in the state.

BSP leader and former UP chief minister Mayawati, on the other hand, is trying to garner the support of Muslims by saying her party was instrumental in bringing the curtains down on the 13-month-old Vajpayee government.

Not to be outdone, the BJP is preening on the fact that the Kalyan Singh government essayed the historic settlement of the Azadari isssue, lifting the ban on religious processions by the Shia and Sunni sects in Lucknow. ''The ban was imposed by a Congress regime in the 1970s and neither successive Congress regimes nor Mulayam Singh Yadav have cared to touch the issue,'' Kalyan Singh was quoted as saying.

Traditionally considered as a Congress vote bank, the Muslims began drifting away from the party after the Emergency. But the decisive break came after the Babri Masjid demolition at Ayodhya in 1992. In the subsequent years, the community has voted for the parties that have aggressively espoused the secular cause like the Samajwadi Party and the BSP in UP, the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar and the TDP in AP.

The 1996 poll, the first after the demolition, is considered to be a classic case of the phenomenon of tactical voting. Of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies in Kerala, Lakshadweep, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, where the minorities formed 15 per cent and above of the electorate, the Congress could win only five seats.

In West Bengal, the Left Front secured about 48 per cent votes in these constituencies while the Congress managed only 40 per cent. In Tamil Nadu, the Congress was routed while in Kerala the Left Front emerged as an alternative to the Congress.

But it was in 50 constituencies of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra and UP that the tactical voting phenomenon was in full display to ensure the BJP's defeat.

In the process, the Muslims even voted for the Congress where the party was strongly poised against the BJP. The Congress won eight of these 50 constituencies while it was runner-up in the others.

Similarly, in Katihar in Bihar, Janata Dal candidate and former Union home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was thought to be on a slippery wicket against the BJP nominee. So, the minorities voted heavily in favour of Congress candidate Tariq Anwar, ensuring his victory with a comfortable majority.

According to the UNI-C voter analysis, in the last decade, the Congress suffered a negative swing of 6.20 per cent votes in high Muslim concentration Lok Sabha constituencies (20 per cent and above) in the east zone comprising Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal.

In northern India, the party suffered an erosion of 11 per cent votes. The BJP, on the other hand, gained a staggering over 29 per cent votes.

In the cacophony of claims and counter-claims, the underlying goal of the competing parties is how to catalyse the Muslim voters in their favour and bring them in large numbers to the hustings. How far they succeed only the results will tell.

UNI

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