The Left camp has promised a doubling of expenditure on welfare schemes and paved the way for reservations for Muslims, while the Trinamool Congress has promised a separate fund, department and commission for the community, besides a special package for Imams. The critical minority vote is being aggressively pursued by rival political groups ahead of the Assembly polls in West Bengal.
Apart from the electoral promises, the Left Front has fielded 57 Muslim candidates, an increase of 13 from the 44 who contested the 2006 Assembly polls. Not to be outdone, the Trinamool Congress and the Congress have together given tickets to 63 Muslim candidates.
It is widely believed that the fortunes of both alliances rest heavily on which way the Muslims — who constitute over 25 per cent of the population in the State according to the 2001 census — will vote.
Whether the Left is able to win back the confidence of its traditional support base, or whether the Opposition alliance will maintain its hold over the community, as it has done since the 2008 rural elections, is the key question.
The erosion in support among Muslims is considered one of the main reasons for the electoral reverses suffered by the Left in 2008 and in the Lok Sabha elections the following year. Its inability to win back the community's support in any substantial way was also reflected in the poor showing in the civic elections in 2010.
Speaking to journalists recently, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee admitted that “minorities were getting impatient that nothing was being done for them” and that this was one of the main failures of the Left Front government in its seventh term.
Mr. Bhattacharjee cited his government's inability to find a way of introducing reservations for Muslims — until the tabling of the Ranganath Misra Commission report in Parliament — as a weakness. But there are several other reasons for the disaffection of the minorities towards the Left.
Sachar report
The findings of the Sachar Committee — particularly some of its figures on high dropout rates of children and low representation in employment in government jobs in West Bengal — provided a lot of fodder to the Opposition's campaign that “the Left is indifferent to the issues of the minorities and merely exploits them as a vote bank.”
“The Sachar Committee report opened their eyes to this reality,” says Sultan Ahmed, senior Trinamool Congress leader and Union Minister of State for Tourism.
While the West Bengal government has always questioned the figures mentioned in the report, its findings were pivotal to the Trinamool Congress's campaign against the Left. The sustained campaign following the Sachar Committee report also coincided with the drive for land acquisition for industry in the State, another issue that was central to the community. As rumours spread that most of the land-losers in Nandigram were Muslims, a perception was created that the State government was specifically targeting the land of the Muslim peasantry. Moreover, the call of the political parties found the backing of the Muslim clergy, with several of its members endorsing Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and openly canvassing for her in several elections.
The death of computer graphics teacher Rizwanur Rahman in September 2007 under suspicious circumstances after his marriage to Priyanka, the daughter of businessman Ashok Todi, allegedly against her family's wishes, and the belief of the complicit involvement of the administration was another emotive issue that rocked large sections of the Muslim community in urban West Bengal.
Political mileage
The political mileage gained from Rizwanur's death and Ms. Banerjee's belief in the magic it worked for her was reflected in her deciding to field his brother, Rukbanur Rahman from Chapra in Nadia district. However, as the Left points out, Rukbanur lost the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections in 2010 on a Trinamool Congress ticket. “We are confident that the electorate has rejected the politicisation of Rizwanur's death” says Mohd. Salim, senior CPI(M) leader and chairman of the West Bengal Minorities Development and Finance Corporation.
Reservation issue
The announcement of reservations for OBC Muslims will be one of the main planks on which the Left seeks to regain the support of the minority voters. The State government has announced 10 per cent reservation in government jobs and higher education for Muslims and has even extended it to the panchayat system.
However, the announcement is yet to have a measurable impact. The new reservation criteria in colleges will be applicable only in the next academic session and there is no available data on how many government jobs have been obtained under the scheme.
“The Muslims have just been handed pieces of paper. This is only lip service provided by the Left Front government,” claims Mr. Ahmed.
