As campaigning ends ahead of the February 15 elections in this town famous for Darul Uloom Deoband, religion seems to be the last thing in the mind of the youth here. In the bylanes around the Islamic seminary, the talk almost alway veers to development, jobs, schools, health facilities and upgrade of infrastructure.
Despite being in the vicinity of Muzaffarnagar, where Jat-Muslim violence broke out in August 2013, communal violence does not seem to be an issue for the voters of the Deoband constituency. Development and growth of the local economy, which is largely agrarian, dominate conversations.
From Kamran Rana, a resident sipping tea at Hotel Alfalh, opposite the narrow lane which divides the Darul Uloom Deoband from the rest of the small town, to Birla Sood, a Balmiki community member who works with the Deoband municipality, residents of this historic town talk about the pointlessness of violence and the need for employment and development as the agenda for the polls.
Communal polarisation has been remarkably absent, at least till now, in the campaigning here. Residents of all religions has this refrain: peace of Deoband lies in the simultaneous existence of the Darul Uloom Deoband and the Shri Bala Sundari temple.
But in more detailed conversations with people of this town, it is obvious that development is not the only election topic.
Ground reality
The ground reality in Deoband, as in any other constituency of the State, is defined by local caste calculations and loyalties forged through favours and traditional ideological affiliations. It is in this context that people see a triangular contest among the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance candidate and the incumbent MLA, Maviya Ali; Majid Ali of the BSP; and Brijesh Singh of the BJP.
Saith, whose family moved to Deoband from Pakistan decades before Partition, is an old Congress loyalist. He said, “Because of the renewed support for the Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance among the over 1.15 lakh Muslim voters, Maviya Ali will get the lion's share of Muslim votes because of a pro-Akhilesh wave among Muslims. The BSP’s Majid Ali may end up eating into the minority votes and take a quarter of the Muslim votes, but that would not affect Mr. Ali’s prospects.”
While Saith highlighted the popularity of Mr. Ali among voters belonging to all castes and religions, local BJP leaders like Amresh Rana are hopeful of a split in the Muslim votes and rest their hopes on it for a BJP victory.
“A substantial chunk of Muslim votes are divided on caste lines. We have among Muslims Gauds, Ansaris, Quraishis, Shaikhs, Nayees and Dhobis. Muslims are not sure who is in the position to defeat the BJP and that is why there would be a strong split. And there lies the possibility of BJP squeezing through in the neck-to-neck contest,” he added. The BJP is sure of getting the traditional votes of Thakurs, with a population of over 40,000, a section of the 28,000 Gujjar votes, and those of other non-Yadav backward castes such as Kashyaps and Sainis.
Highlighting the caste arithmetic, Rana said, “We are getting the votes of backward caste and non-Yadav OBCs. All we need is a split in Muslim votes.”
