Even as most exit polls indicated a hung Assembly in Uttar Pradesh, a survey of the Muslim community in the State show large number of them want the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to join hands in such a situation.
Over 92% of the respondents in the survey done by CrowdNewsing want the SP and the BSP to bury their differences and come together to form the government in the State.
In 10 pockets
The post-poll survey reveals that the Muslim vote was anything but strategic, says Bilal Zaidi, founder of CrowdNewsing, which talked to 2,600 people in 10 Muslim-majority pockets in urban and rural areas of the State. CrowdNewsing is a start-up that crowdfunds stories for journalists.
“The vote of the minority community was split wide open between the SP, the Congress alliance and the BSP, with the former getting over 55% of the community’s vote. Only 36% of the respondents said they had voted for BSP. The remaining voted for smaller parties such as the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen and the Peace Party-led alliance,” Mr. Zaidi says.
In communally disturbed areas such as Shamli and Kairana of western U.P., the Congress-SP alliance seems to have prevailed over the BSP. On the other hand, the Muslim community in many pockets of central and eastern Uttar Pradesh seems to have strongly backed Mayawati’s Dalit-Muslim position, bypassing the SP-Congress alliance.
Reasons for disaffection
When probed about the reasons behind their disaffection with the BJP, most of the respondents pointed to the party’s public positioning against the community; 86% respondents believed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘ shamshan versus kabristan ’ comment was a direct attack on minorities. Asked whether Ram Mandir or Babri Masjid is an election issue or not, 59% believed it was a non-starter. This includes close to 75% voters under 30 years of age.
Asked about the reasons for their voting preference, the top answer was “the party’s ability to win” with 45%, followed by “the candidate’s ability to defeat the BJP candidate” at 29%, and “candidate’s track record” at 20%.
Asked about issues that mattered to them, development of infrastructure, roads, water and electricity tops the agenda at 44%, followed by party’s ability to “prevent riots, communal violence” at 23%, “creation of jobs” at 19%, and “candidate’s religion” at 12%.
