SHAKEEL Alam Saifi, BJP’s lone Muslim candidate in the 2012 UP polls, is in a fix — how will he ask the community to vote for BJP when it has refused ticket to even one Muslim this election. Saifi, the only Muslim to have fought an Assembly election on a BJP ticket in the state since 2002, said: “If the party had given a few tickets to Muslims, we would have been able to go to them and say something. But now it is difficult to seek their votes. How would we ask them to give us votes?” “It is true that Muslims don’t vote for BJP. But BJP also does not try to get their votes. There are 403 seats in UP and BJP leaders know they are not going to win all. They should have given tickets to a few Muslims on seats they knew they would lose,” he added. Saifi (52), who had contested from Sahaswan seat of Badaun in 2012, came sixth with 2,238 votes. His deposit was forfeited. He, however, maintained that he cannot be singled out as a weak candidate because 229 BJP candidates had lost their deposits in 2012. Watch What Else Is Making News A member of BJP Minority Cell’s national executive, Saifi said he had sought a ticket from Muslim-dominated Bilari seat of Moradabad but did not succeed. “I am in the BJP not because I am a Muslim but because I like the party’s nationalist ideology. The party’s election committee has dignity and I am not going to ask why I was not selected as a candidate. They have gone with winnable candidates,” he added. Saifi lives in Majhoula village of Sambhal with his family of 11, which included his wife, six sons, two girls, a daughter-in-law and a granddaughter. A electric generator mechanic, Saifi said he will campaign for the BJP but won’t focus on Muslim areas. He described triple talaq, mentioned in the BJP manifesto released by party president Amit Shah in Lucknow last Saturday, as a non-issue. “Triple talaq is a personal matter for Muslims. They will resolve it themselves. This is an unreasonable issue and the party will not get any support on its basis,” he said. BJP has promised to take up the issue of triple talaq if Muslim women in the state asked it to do so. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah have raised the issue of triple talaq in their speeches in UP, calling for the end of the practice. In 1996 and 2002 UP elections, BJP had fielded late Gaffar Khan from Tilhar in Shahjahanpur. but he lost both times. It went on to field two Muslim candidates in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. Both lost. While Shah Mohammad, who contested from Azamgarh, came fifth with 34,735 votes, Arif Mohammad Khan lost Kaiserganj seat to SP’s Beni Prasad Verma by over 12,000 votes.
