Back To Congress Fold: Indian Muslims Shift Political Base,

Islam and Politics

Back To Congress Fold: Indian Muslims Shift Political Base

MUSLIMS in Delhi settled the dust over the controversy over their loyalties shifting to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), as they rallied behind the Congress candidates in the three seats where their vote really mattered.

A chunk of Muslims, who form nearly 16 per cent of the city’s electorate, are concentrated in the Chandni Chowk, east Delhi and Northeast Delhi constituencies.

The Congress posted its top three victory margins in Delhi from these seats, with Sandeep Dikshit, Kapil Sibal and J.P. Aggarwal winning nearly two-thirds mandate in some pockets.

The BSP is perceived as a threat to the Muslim votebank of the Congress ever since it won nine per cent votes in the last municipal polls. It then bettered the share to 14 per cent and won two seats in the assembly elections last year.

In the Okhla assembly segment, where Muslims are angry with the Congress ever since the Batla House encounter, the resentment was evident. Congress’s Parvez Hashmi could just manage to scrape past the BSP candidate by a narrow margin of 543 votes last year. In this election though, Congress’s Sandeep Dikshit received a resounding two-thirds mandate from the same area.

“The message is clear. Muslims want security and they see the Congress as the only party capable of providing it. Whatever advances the BSP had made have been reversed in this election,” said a senior Congress leader.

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