Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh): As Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections are a few months away, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen President Asaduddin Owaisi, who is eager to expand his party to the national level, is eyeing the Muslim population of the state in order to provide an alternative political space to them.
For this, Owaisi has put more emphasis on the Muslim dominated Assembly constituencies of Purvanchal and West Uttar Pradesh. Not only this, he has decided to field candidates in the hundred Muslim dominated constituencies. He also accuses the opposition parties of overlooking the minorities and seeking their votes only for electoral gains.
Issues of political representation and power participation of Muslims have been raised in the past as well. But Owaisi is trying hard to revive the old experiments with his passionate speeches.
It should be noted that the total population of Muslims in the state is close to 20 per cent, who are dominant in 145 to 146 assembly constituencies and in view of this, Owaisi is posing himself as an alternative to Muslims there.
However, the history of Muslim politics in the state is very old. Before and after independence also, there is a long list of political parties claiming to be the leaders of Muslims.
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History of Muslim politics in UP
In Uttar Pradesh, a meeting of political, religious and non-political people of the Muslim community was called on the initiative of Maulana Ali Mian to awaken political consciousness in Muslims and in 1964, Muslim Majlis-e-Mashawarat in the form of a social organisation was introduced.
First of all, programmes were organised to take out processions and create awareness among Muslims under the aegis of Mashwarat. Similarly, Dr Abdul Jalil Faridi, who was influenced by Ambedkarite ideology, later joined Mashawarat and was a well-known TB doctor in Lucknow.
He kept working on the mission of politically uniting the Dalit-Muslims, benevolent of the poor. Along with this, he was considered a staunch opponent of Congress. This is the reason that later he emerged as a Muslim face in active politics and he was the first to establish Muslim politics in the province.
Dr. Faridi and Muslim Majlis
With the help of Dr Jalil Faridi's efforts and mentorship, the Joint Legislature Party was formed, in which some local parties were also merged. In 1967, a political party was formed under the leadership of Dr Abdul Jalil Faridi under the name of Muslim Majlis, but contested the elections in alliance with Lok Dal led by Chaudhary Charan Singh.
Due to the non-registration of Majlis, the party had to contest elections on Lok Dal ticket and then they won 12 seats. The Muslim Majlis was registered in 1968 and Dr Faridi became the first president of the party.
When the government formed in UP with the help of Majlis...
The first non-Congress government in Uttar Pradesh was formed in 1967 under the leadership of Chaudhary Charan Singh with the support of Rajnarayan's party and Muslim Majlis, in which Dr Abdul Jalil Faridi played an important role.
However, in the elections held in UP after two years (1969), Muslim Majlis contested the Assembly elections, in which six MLAs of Majlis were declared successful. But, after this, the Majlis could not stand long in which Congress played a vital role.
According to the political experts of the state, it was only after the 1969 elections that Indira Gandhi gave the Muslim League of Kerala an opportunity to establish political roots in Uttar Pradesh.
In the year 1970, in the Kanpur session of Muslim Majlis, Dr Bashir Ahmed Khan had started chanting the Indian Union Muslim League mantra.
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A few days after the convention, the Indian Union Muslim League had forayed into UP politics and Dr Shamim Ahmed Khan was appointed as the state president and Dr Bashir Ahmed Khan was made the General Secretary.
In the 1971 elections, the Indian Muslim League contested in Uttar Pradesh but lost all the seats. After this, in the 1974 Assembly elections, the Indian Muslim League had contested 51 seats.
In 1995, when Mayawati showed the way out to Dr Masood, who was the then Education Minister in her government, he, along with Asad Khan, formed the National Democratic Party. However, after contesting many elections, he could win only an MP and an MLA seat.
Later, the Peace Party came into existence in 2008. In the 2012 Assembly elections, the party won four Assembly seats, but after five years in 2017, the party was not able to win a single seat.
Though the Muslim parties have not been able to make significant inroads in the state, it's a million-dollar question if Owaisi will provide alternate political space to Muslims in the state.
