Congress and NCP, before their split claimed equal rights on Muslim votes. Post-split, both are contending to woo the community.
Muslim votes in Maharashtra’s multicornered assembly polls seem to have raised the pre-poll electoral relevance of small parties which were at one time dismissed as vote splitters with marginal appeal.
“Muslims have a choice to reject so-called secular parties like Congress, NCP and SP, and elect MIM, which will help them get what these parties denied them for years,” said MIM candidate from Byculla, Waris Pathan. Majlise Ittihadul Muslameen (MIM) filed nominations for about 30 seats, including 8 in the city.
In this past week, both the NCP and Congress have dumped their largely dismissive approach towards the Samajwadi Party and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), and actively courted the former while attacking the latter for `aiding communal’ parties.
SP state unit chief and MLA Abu Asim Azmi told the media that a pre-poll coalition was almost sealed with the Congress for eight seats however the central leadership called it off citing apprehension about the Hindu vote.
“We wanted to ally with them to ensure secular votes are united and the split does not help the Shiv Sena or the BJP .The state leadership of Congress, too, was in favour of the alliance. That’s precisely why they approached us, but the central leadership was more concerned it seems about a possible adverse reaction from the Hindu voters since we take up issues related to Muslims consistently,” Azmi said.
With the collapse of their alliance, the NCP was quick to clutch the opportunity he claimed, and talks with the Sharad Pawar-led party are in progress for announcing an alliance. The SP has put up 27 candidates.
Senior leader of the NCP, Nawab Malik, confirmed that talks with SP were on.
The details of the understanding will be announced once it is worked out. For the time being, they are exploring how they could help each other, Malik said.