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Journalism of Courage
IN A boost to the BSP, which is trying to woo back Muslims to the party, Western Uttar Pradesh leader Imran Masood on Wednesday joined it from the Samajwadi Party. BSP supremo Mayawati immediately appointed Masood the coordinator of the west UP region, where he is a prominent voice among Muslims, signalling his importance.
Wooing the Muslim vote has been on the mind of all of the state’s major political players ever since the SP got significant support from the community in the UP elections early this year. The BJP’s Pasmanda conference Sunday and the Congress’s appointment of old BSP hand and key Muslim face Nasimuddin Siddiqui as the party’s regional president of western UP earlier this month can be seen in the same context.
In the bypoll held in Azamgarh this June, BSP candidate Shah Alam alias Guddy Jamali finished third with over 2.66 lakh votes, a significant chunk of them Muslim votes. Since then, the BSP has been quoting the results to say that the community was aligning with the party owing to its disappointment with the SP, which failed to defeat the BJP even after getting votes of the minority community. With Masood in their fold now, the BSP is looking to cash in his popularity in Western UP in a similar manner.
Masood, the nephew of former MP Rasheed Masood, won his first election in 2007 as an Independent from the Muzaffarabad Assembly constituency. In 2012, the Congress picked him as a youth face in Rahul Gandhi’s team. In 2012 and 2017, he contested from the Nakur Assembly seat in Saharanpur but lost narrowly.
Masood was at the centre of controversy ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when a video clip of him threatening Narendra Modi, then the PM candidate of the BJP, and blaming the BJP and the RSS for the 2013 Muzzafarnagar riots had surfaced. A case was registered against him for hate speech. In the Lok Sabha polls that followed, Masood lost to a BJP candidate.
Despite electoral losses, he was able to retain his popularity among Muslim youth.
Just ahead of the Assembly polls this year, Masood switched over to the SP. However, as per him, his short tenure with the Akhilesh Yadav-led party left him “disappointed”.
A day after joining the BSP, Masood told The Indian Express: “Muslims voted for the SP in a one-sided manner and the desired result (of forming the government) was not achieved. If these votes (of Muslims) had gone to the BSP, it would have formed the government.”
He added: “I joined the SP with the hope that the party will provide justice to the Muslim community. But the SP’s working style shows that the party could not ensure justice to our community and other oppressed and Backward sections.”
Masood’s exit from the SP incidentally comes on the heels of Akhilesh facing accusations of maintaining silence on alleged harassment of Muslims under the BJP state government. In August, when Akhilesh met jailed party MLA Ramakant Yadav at the Azamgarh district jail, Mayawati questioned “why he does not visit the jailed Muslim leaders of his party”.
Masood said he believed that the Muslims and Dalits would come together under the BSP. “They will support the BSP to bring change in UP. People trust only the BSP. The state’s political history shows that whenever the SP got strength, the BJP became stronger. And, when the BSP became powerful, the BJP became weak.”
Masood said the coming urban local body elections, considered an indication of where various parties stand ahead of the 2024 polls, will be the next big challenge for the party and that he would work to ensure the BSP’s win.
In this year’s Assembly polls, the BSP field the maximum number of Muslim candidates – 88 – across the 403 Assembly seats. The SP and its alliance partners had 61 candidates from the community, out of which 33 candidates won. None of the BSP’s Muslim contenders won, with the party itself getting a single seat.
