India

From the Urdu Press: AAP tsunami and Muslim expectations

February 17, 2015 03:23 PM

The surprising decimation of the BJP in recent assembly elections in Delhi has created obvious excitement in the media. 

While Congress party was expected to lose and lose badly, no one was daring to write off the BJP, more so as the party had made the Delhi election a prestige issue. Many analysts had claimed that BJP may have to pay dearly for going too far in a fight that of late was looking like going in Aam Aadmi Party's favor. 

BJP boss Amit Shah and other top BJP, RSS brass will go for brainstorming session to put things in perspective and find out as to why their calculations went so terribly wrong.


Despite all the pollsters inferring that AAP was expected to win the elections, no one was betting that the fight will be too one sided and that BJP will have to be content with just three of its legislators making it to the assembly. 

Someone humorously claimed the other day that Tata needs to launch a smaller vehicle than its cheapest car Nano to ferry BJP legislators from the Secretariat in the heart of the national capital, while someone else said a bike will suffice.

When the results started coming, people didn't grasp the magnitude of what was going to come in the next few hours. While Arvind Kejriwal led party was leading in around 50 seats, BJP was leading in 15 and Congress seemed to have staved off a complete rout as it was ahead in 4 or 5 seats. 

Pollsters and psephologists believed that they were on the dot, nonetheless as the day progressed from morning to noon, things started changing. AAP candidates started galloping ahead, eclipsing one and all and trouncing the BJP and Congress heavyweights one after the other.

The way respected names on Delhi's political horizons for years and decades tumbled one after the other, the hardly recognizable faces belonging to AAP were flashed on TV sets as giant killers. The AAP chariot didn't stop till it had humiliated the BJP and forced the Congress into complete obscurity for at least another five years in Delhi.

Urdu media seems to be excited with the sudden change in Delhi's political climate. A former IPS office while writing in Urud Rashtriya Sahara has come out with a long list of demands from the new chief minister whose party enjoys complete control of the assembly. Out of 70 seats in the assembly, AAP has as many as 67 members, something unprecedented in the history of Delhi.

In an article titled "Hopes of Muslims from AAP Government', the author says statistics prove that capital's Muslims voted overwhelmingly in favor of AAP candidates across the seventy constituencies. 

He says in around 26 constituencies of Delhi, Muslims are a deciding factor and that they overwhelmingly supported the fledgling political outfit, by completely abandoning the Congress that was not in contention this time round.

He says in many constituencies where Muslim votes are a deciding factor, the seat is reserved for Scheduled Castes and a Muslim candidate may not even contest from such seats.

"In Delhi's Mongolpuri constituency, Scheduled Castes make 34.16 percent of the population and Muslims make just 6.31 percent. 

But the seat is not reserved for Scheduled Castes. On the contrary in Seemapuri where Muslim population is as much as 17.38 percent and Scheduled Castes population is just 28.97 percent, the constituency is reserved for Scheduled Castes. 

Now the new government, as per Sachar Committee recommendation, should forward the issue to delimitation commission with a request to reserve Mongolpuri constituency and free Seemapuri constituency from reservation. This will correct a wrong that has been forced upon Muslims of the constituency".

Zafar Mahmood, who was an OSD for Sachar Committee in former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's office in the says in the same breath, "infrastructure schemes that are meant to address the poor are actually implemented in those areas where poor and people from minority communities don't live. We demand the new government that from now onwards it should use villages in rural areas and wards in urban areas as units for implementation of such infrastructure schemes". 

He also goes to demand an interest free banking option for Muslims as interest or usury is completely prohibited in Islam.

Tariq Anwar, a former MP and union minister in Manmohan Singh government in the same newspaper says that Kejriwal will have to do a lot of balancing act in coming days. 

He talked about the large number of promises that AAP has committed in Delhi in the run-up to assembly polls and says it will be interesting to see what roadmap AAP comes with for the implementation of all those promises.

"You have asked your party leaders and cadres that they shouldn't allow the win to get over their heads. You should also analyse your own behavior too. There have been numerous reports in media that many of your senior colleagues including Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav and Ilyas Azmi are not very happy with your working style. There are also news that though you want Muslims' votes, but not Muslims per se. you need to take care of such rumors and show to the world that these apprehensions are all without basis and merely rumors" Tariq Anwar said while addressing Kejriwal.

On the other hand, Ashraf Asthanwi while writing in Daily Inquilab says "it is not easy to even celebrate such a massive victory. There may be more fear than excitement following such victories. AAP leaders are faced with a similarly piquant situation at the moment. Huge wins come with even larger expectations from common people. 

And we all know that implementation of so big promises is not going to be easy. If it is unable to implement its poll promises, there is every probability that AAP's popularity may wane in the days to come faster than anyone can even anticipate. The good thing is that they have a clear perception of high expectations".
Have something to say? Post your comment
Copyright © 2012 Calgary Indians All rights reserved. Terms & Conditions Privacy Policy