Wooing the Muslim vote has been on the thoughts of all the state’s main political gamers ever for the reason that SP bought important assist from the neighborhood within the UP elections early this 12 months. The BJP’s Pasmanda convention Sunday and the Congress’s appointment of previous BSP hand and key Muslim face Nasimuddin Siddiqui because the occasion’s regional president of western UP earlier this month may be seen in the identical context.
Within the bypoll held in Azamgarh this June, BSP candidate Shah Alam alias Guddy Jamali completed third with over 2.66 lakh votes, a big chunk of them Muslim votes. Since then, the BSP has been quoting the outcomes to say that the neighborhood was aligning with the occasion owing to its disappointment with the SP, which did not defeat the BJP even after getting votes of the minority neighborhood. With Masood of their fold now, the BSP is seeking to money in his recognition in Western UP in an identical method.
Masood, the nephew of former MP Rasheed Masood, received his first election in 2007 as an Unbiased from the Muzaffarabad Meeting constituency. In 2012, the Congress picked him as a youth face in Rahul Gandhi’s group. In 2012 and 2017, he contested from the Nakur Meeting seat in Saharanpur however misplaced narrowly.
Masood was on the centre of controversy forward of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when a video clip of him threatening Narendra Modi, then the PM candidate of the BJP, and blaming the BJP and the RSS for the 2013 Muzzafarnagar riots had surfaced. A case was registered in opposition to him for hate speech. Within the Lok Sabha polls that adopted, Masood misplaced to a BJP candidate.
Regardless of electoral losses, he was capable of retain his recognition amongst Muslim youth.
Simply forward of the Meeting polls this 12 months, Masood converted to the SP. Nonetheless, as per him, his brief tenure with the Akhilesh Yadav-led occasion left him “disillusioned”.
A day after becoming a member of the BSP, Masood advised The Indian Specific: “Muslims voted for the SP in a one-sided method and the specified consequence (of forming the federal government) was not achieved. If these votes (of Muslims) had gone to the BSP, it might have shaped the federal government.”
He added: “I joined the SP with the hope that the occasion will present justice to the Muslim neighborhood. However the SP’s working model exhibits that the occasion couldn’t guarantee justice to our neighborhood and different oppressed and Backward sections.”
Masood’s exit from the SP by the way comes on the heels of Akhilesh going through accusations of sustaining silence on alleged harassment of Muslims underneath the BJP state authorities. In August, when Akhilesh met jailed occasion MLA Ramakant Yadav on the Azamgarh district jail, Mayawati questioned “why he doesn’t go to the jailed Muslim leaders of his occasion”.
Masood mentioned he believed that the Muslims and Dalits would come collectively underneath the BSP. “They’ll assist the BSP to deliver change in UP. Individuals belief solely the BSP. The state’s political historical past exhibits that at any time when the SP bought power, the BJP grew to become stronger. And, when the BSP grew to become highly effective, the BJP grew to become weak.”
Masood mentioned the approaching city native physique elections, thought of a sign of the place varied events stand forward of the 2024 polls, would be the subsequent large problem for the occasion and that he would work to make sure the BSP’s win.
On this 12 months’s Meeting polls, the BSP subject the utmost variety of Muslim candidates – 88 – throughout the 403 Meeting seats. The SP and its alliance companions had 61 candidates from the neighborhood, out of which 33 candidates received. Not one of the BSP’s Muslim contenders received, with the occasion itself getting a single seat.