The Karnataka Muslim Muttahida Mahaz, an umbrella organisation of non-political Muslim groups that has identified “secular-minded” candidates to defeat “communal” forces, has failed to arrive at a consensus on a “suitable” candidate to back in Narasimharaja Assembly constituency in Mysuru.
Narasimharaja, which has a large population of Muslim voters, is among the two constituencies that the Mahaz has failed to come to a consensus on. The other is Mulbagal in Kolar, where Congress candidate G. Manjunath’s nomination papers were rejected on technical grounds.
Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Tanveer Sait, who has been elected from Narasimharaja in the past four elections, is facing a tough fight with the Social Democratic Party of India’s Abdul Majeed, who lost by around 8,000 votes in 2013. Abdul Azeez alias Abdulla of the JD(S) and S. Satish alias Sandesh Swamy of the BJP are also in the fray.
The Mahaz representatives in Mysuru are divided on the issue, with almost half of them favouring Mr. Majeed while the other half prefers Mr. Sait. “As there is no consensus, we have asked the committee members to collect the opinion of more people and dig deeper,” said Syed Tanveer Ahmed, executive committee member of the Mahaz.
A section of Mahaz representatives in the district have urged the State-level office-bearers to not take any decision on the “suitable candidate” in Narasimharaja and leave it the wisdom of the voters.
Though the Mahaz has gone with Congress candidates in over 200 constituencies in the State, against 16 where they are supporting the JD(S), the feedback coming from Narasimharaja is about the supposed inaccessibility of Mr. Sait.
The SDPI candidate is, in contrast, more accessible and responds to people’s grievances, according to representatives of the Mahaz.
A section of Mahaz representatives feel that any move to support a non-Congress candidate might lead to a split in secular votes, thus giving the edge to the BJP. But most representatives feel there is no threat of the BJP repeating its 1994 performance, when its candidate Maruthi Rao Pawar won because of a split in Muslim votes between the late Minister Azeez Sait and the then Karnataka Janata Paksha candidate Abdul Azeez.
Muslims make up about half the 2.5 lakh voters of Narasimharaja segment.
