Opinion | Wooing the Muslim Vote: TMC’s Risky Gamble in West Bengal

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee along with her nephew and party General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee, greet muslims on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr in Kolkata. (PTI Photo)

Even as most other Opposition parties elsewhere are desperately trying to chase the Hindu vote in the run-up to the general elections, which kick off next week, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal is up to something that might seem a little odd: it’s heavily wooing Muslim voters. The reason, of course, is that nearly 30 per cent of the state’s population is Muslim and the community votes can make or mar a party’s prospects. Which makes it perhaps the only state where the Muslim vote commands a premium.

Many in her party are reported to be concerned that in her desperation, she has ended up flirting with some of the community’s less salubrious elements such as the likes of a strongman from Sandeshkhali — Shahjahan Sheikh — who is at the centre of allegations of widespread sexual harassment of women.

A controversy has broken out over the party’s choice for the Malda South constituency, a traditional Congress stronghold currently represented by Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury, former Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare in the erstwhile Congress-led UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government at the Centre. He has held the seat since 2009 after inheriting it from his brother, the veteran Congressman, A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury.

The TMC has fielded a political upstart called Shahnawaz Ali Raihan regarded as a poster boy for the Muslim Right with his strident attacks on the BJP and criticism of liberal Muslims. The BJP has accused him of shadowy political links and “anti-national” activities. It has launched an aggressive campaign against him portraying him as a threat to national security.

So, who is Shahnawaz Ali Raihan? A PhD scholar at Oxford University (the intriguing topic of his research is ‘Between Marx and Muhammad: Muslims and Communism in Bengal’), Raihan has been parachuted into the thick of West Bengal’s polarised politics and is being touted as TMC’s “secret weapon” to break whatever is left of the Congress party’s once captive Muslim “vote bank”.

In the last election, the TMC candidate in Malda South, Md Moazzem Hossain, came third after the BJP’s Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury. Raihan’s candidature is seen as a gamble calculated to appeal to young Muslims disillusioned with the Congress and looking for a more radical alternative to the incumbent 86-year-old Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury.

Moderate Muslims fear that his presence could give a further fillip to radical tendencies trying to expand their influence.

For, the truth is that even after discounting the toxicity of BJP’s campaign against him, there’s no escaping Raihan’s links with right-wing Muslim groups, including the controversial Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO), the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind.

He was SIO’s national secretary when studying at Jamia Millia University. He was also associated with Jamaat’s NGO Human Welfare Foundation whose offices were raided by National Investigation Agency in 2020 for allegedly using its funds to finance terror groups in Jammu and Kashmir. It called the raids politically motivated. Raihan has acknowledged these links arguing that it is not a “crime” to be associated with Muslim organisations. He has dismissed BJP’s more lurid allegations as “fake” and a part of its “divisive politics”.

“Now I have decided to contest (the Lok Sabha elections) as the BJP has been infusing the politics of division in my home area of Malda. So far, I have been highlighting their divisive agenda through my writings and speeches,” he said in a newspaper interview. Rejecting allegations of “anti-national” activities, he said, “I love India and have not said anything against my country. The BJP IT cell has been attacking me since my name was declared. They are peddling lies and fake news. Yes, I raised slogans against the BJP and criticised them for their move to bring in CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and NRC (National Register of Citizens) which the party is using to push people out of the country.”

It is not known whether he still retains his old links or has moved on, like many young Muslims who having been initially seduced by Islamism’s messianic appeal have gone on to abandon it after discovering its pernicious influence.

Responding to reported discomfort within the TMC ranks over his candidature, the party’s state spokesperson Riju Dutta said Raihan was chosen because of his “academic achievements and commitment to social justice”. Really, Mr Dutta? Are you sure it has nothing to do with further polarising an already polarised polity? Meanwhile, the TMC has refused to join the anti-BJP Congress-Left alliance and has instead chosen to go alone in all the 42 Lok Sabha seats.

A crucial factor behind this intransigence is the party’s unwillingness to share seats in Muslim-dominated areas. And to win them, it’s following the old Congress playbook of “field-a-Muslim-to-woo-a-Muslim” — going to some lengths to find potentially vote-catching Muslim candidates. So, it has fielded cricketer Yusuf Pathan in Baharampur, currently held by Congress MP and state unit chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, hoping to flip the seat with a high-profile Muslim face. The logic is that even if Pathan loses, he will have established the party’s presence in a key constituency. And if he manages to pull it off, it would reveal a significant shift in traditional Muslim support for the Congress.

A recent survey by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found distinct evidence of “some consolidation” of the Muslim vote behind the party best placed to defeat the BJP. In West Bengal, that party is the TMC. In the 2021 Assembly elections, Muslims voted overwhelmingly for it. And, by all accounts, history is most likely to repeat itself in what will be a huge setback to the Congress and the Left as traditionally, the Muslim vote was split among the TMC, the Congress and the Left.

Over the past year, the TMC has worked overtime in its bid to win over the community, offering them a number of sops including an increase in the stipends of Muslim clerics, extra quotas for Muslims in the state medical entrance exam, and a promise to recognise hundreds of private madrassas, among others. Banerjee’s Left-liberal critics have accused her of “playing the religion card” and inciting Muslims. At one rally, she told them she had been “ridiculed when I do roza during Ramzan; the BJP even changed my name. But I don’t care…” On one occasion, she reportedly wore a burqa while canvassing, and on another, she posed for photographs with a copy of the Quran in her hand.

If Mamata Banerjee is really serious about Muslim welfare, she should stop pandering to moneyed musclemen and right-wing ideologues. What the community needs is progressive leadership and not more power brokers.

The writer is an independent columnist and the author of ‘Unmasking Indian Secularism: Why We Need A New Hindu-Muslim Deal’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.