Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee starts taking care of Muslims 10 months ahead of polls

KOLKATA: With barely ten months to go for next assembly elections in West Bengal, chief minister Mamata Banerjee seems keen to keep the minority communities contented. She has asked her administration to speed up the process for giving scholarships to Muslim students.

“We have already introduced online system to enable Muslim students to apply for scholarships our government has been providing to them. But I have information that lakhs of Muslim students who are poor can't apply online to get the scholarships. You please help these students so that they can avail online system to get the scholarships. If necessary, you should hold camps at village levels to help these students to use the online system to get scholarship money,” the chief minister told officials during her hundredth administrative meeting held at Burdwan on Wednesday.

Her government has also given Eid bonus to state government employees who belong to the minority community. These employees, whose monthly salaries are less than Rs 24,000, have got Rs 3,200 as festival bonus. A senior state government official said that Muslim employees have already got this bonus on Wednesday. The government will have to bear an additional expenditure worth Rs 400 crore.

Earlier this week, Banerjee held a meeting with Jamiat Ulema E-Hind leader Siddiqullah Chowdhury for about two hours at Nabanna, the state administrative headquarters. Chowdhury was critical of Mamata's government and alleged that her government did nothing for the minorities.
After his meeting with the chief minister, Chowdhury took a U-turn and praised her government's role in carrying out development works for Muslims. He is now expected to join Trinamool Congress in the days ahead.

Mamata and her party are worried about recent moves taken by her political opponents like expelled CPI(M) leader Abdur Rezzak Mollah and sidelined Trinamool Congress MP Mukul Roy to woo Muslims. Mamata's government was so sensitive about their move that the Haz committee in the state had refused Mollah to hold an Iftar party at Haz House here on July 14.

Two Muslim dominated district of Murshidabad and Malda are still considered to be Congress stronghold where Mamata's party is yet to improve their electoral performance. In Murshidabad, 63.67 per cent of the total population is Muslim. The Malda figure is 52.05 per cent. Apart from these two districts, Muslim population in Birbhum, North Dinajpur and South 24-Parganas influence election results effectively. In North Dinajour district, Muslims account for 47.30% of the total population. The figures in Birbhum and South 24-Parganas are 35.08 per cent and 33.02 per cent, respectively.