Samajwadi Party brings Saddam to help garner Muslim votes
Sensing the potential of extra-territorial issues in mobilisation of Muslim votes, the Samajwadi Party has placed hanging of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as an important campaign issue in the UP elections.
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: Sensing the potential of extra-territorial issues in mobilisation of Muslim votes, the Samajwadi Party has placed hanging of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as an important campaign issue in the UP elections.
After the hanging of Saddam, parties like the Samajwadi Party and the CPM had organised several protest marches in minority-dominated pockets of the state. Incidentally, some areas witnessed “spontaneous” protests a month after the hanging.
The practitioners of this variety of Muslim outreach believe in the pull of the concept of global Islamic brotherhood. They are not off the mark as global issues like Saddam’s hanging and even Israel-Palestine conflict have had its resonance among some members of the community.
Just like the BJP, the SP has chosen the CD route to reach out to its minority constituency. The attempt of this CD is not just to complicate inter-faith equations — it blames the Hindu community for Gujarat riots — but also to make things difficult for the Congress. The CD contains speeches of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Amar Singh and Natwar Singh, blaming the Centre for not supporting Saddam at the time of his execution.
With successive opinion polls suggesting that Muslims were reverting to their old practice of “strategic voting” — support for the candidate who is in a position to defeat the BJP and then the Samajwadi Party — Mulayam Singh is anxious to ensure a consolidation of the community votes in his party’s favour.
It was this consideration that prompted the SP to back rowdy protests against the Danish cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet and the campaign against the visit of US president George Bush.
The SP’s attempts saw the Congress going on an overdrive to ‘appease’ members of the community. But the government’s inability to act on the Sachar report recommendations as well as inability to protect the Babri Masjid past have been major hindrances to its efforts to win over the community.
Rahul Gandhi’s ‘judgement on history’ only helped in reviving the Ayodhya issue. It also gave the rivals of the Congress yet another opportunity to question the party’s secular credentials.
The Congress, however, is hoping for a splintering of the Muslim vote for denying the advantage that the SP had so far enjoyed. But if the BJP pitches its campaign aggressively on issues that appeal to the Hindu-minded, the possibility of a significant section of the Muslim community backing the SP cannot be ruled out.
After the hanging of Saddam, parties like the Samajwadi Party and the CPM had organised several protest marches in minority-dominated pockets of the state. Incidentally, some areas witnessed “spontaneous” protests a month after the hanging.
The practitioners of this variety of Muslim outreach believe in the pull of the concept of global Islamic brotherhood. They are not off the mark as global issues like Saddam’s hanging and even Israel-Palestine conflict have had its resonance among some members of the community.
Just like the BJP, the SP has chosen the CD route to reach out to its minority constituency. The attempt of this CD is not just to complicate inter-faith equations — it blames the Hindu community for Gujarat riots — but also to make things difficult for the Congress. The CD contains speeches of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Amar Singh and Natwar Singh, blaming the Centre for not supporting Saddam at the time of his execution.
With successive opinion polls suggesting that Muslims were reverting to their old practice of “strategic voting” — support for the candidate who is in a position to defeat the BJP and then the Samajwadi Party — Mulayam Singh is anxious to ensure a consolidation of the community votes in his party’s favour.
It was this consideration that prompted the SP to back rowdy protests against the Danish cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet and the campaign against the visit of US president George Bush.
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The SP’s attempts saw the Congress going on an overdrive to ‘appease’ members of the community. But the government’s inability to act on the Sachar report recommendations as well as inability to protect the Babri Masjid past have been major hindrances to its efforts to win over the community.
Rahul Gandhi’s ‘judgement on history’ only helped in reviving the Ayodhya issue. It also gave the rivals of the Congress yet another opportunity to question the party’s secular credentials.
The Congress, however, is hoping for a splintering of the Muslim vote for denying the advantage that the SP had so far enjoyed. But if the BJP pitches its campaign aggressively on issues that appeal to the Hindu-minded, the possibility of a significant section of the Muslim community backing the SP cannot be ruled out.
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