UTTAR PRADESH
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The seventh and final phase of UP assembly elections muslims will play a key role, across 60 assembly constituencies covering Rohilkhand and parts of Terai. The 10 districts going to the polls include Bijnor, Moradabad, Bheem Nagar, Rampur, Jyotibha Phule Nagar, Badaun, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur and Lakhimpur Kheri. Muslims are 19-49% of the population in these districts. While in 16 constituencies the strength of the community is between 20% and 29%, in 31 seats, Muslims are 30% and above.
The phase will decide whether the Congress, which made unexpected gains in the 2009 LS elections, is able to keep up the…
Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav trying to woo Muslims and Dalits, promised to pressurise the Centre for quota to backward Muslims and inclusion of 17 castes in Scheduled Caste list.
Charging Congress with misleading Muslims in the name of reservation, Yadav said only his government could help the community in getting their rights. In Kannauj, he appealed to the voters to get all party candidates elected as it was parliamentary constituency of SP state president Akhilesh Yadav.
L.K Advani,who is the senior leader of Bharatiya Janata Party said that “There are no differences within the party for the election campaign in Uttar Pradesh. It is not much of an issue. Everybody is going (there) as per own convenience. We have many campaigners. And we are optimistic about it,” Advani said.
Voicing concern over the proposed reservation plan for Muslims, Advani said religion-based reservation was against the Constitution and could prove disastrous for the country. Uttar Pradesh polls will be held from February 8 to March 3.
Upcoming Uttar Pradesh polls, the big national parties woo the backward Muslims and the Dalits, looking to play spoiler is the Peace Party with its unique formula for the backward vote. In Chandausi, a Scheduled Caste reserved constituency, the Peace Party’s candidate is Sarvesh – a Dalit Hindu – who also became Shabnam after her marriage to Shauqin Ahmed 15 years ago.
This approach is natural social engineering at its best and fits in perfectly with the Peace Party’s larger scheme of garnering Muslim support with giving tickets to Hindus based on a caste calculus.
The Bharatiya Janata Party took out protest marches and held public meetings against the move to provide reservations to Muslims, saying it was a sinister design of the Congress backed by the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Addressing party workers at Subhas Chowk here, BJP national secretary and in-charge of party’s affairs in Uttar Pradesh, Narendra Singh Tomar, said that the Congress was sowing seeds of division by providing reservation to Muslims.
BJP leader Uma Bharti termed Congress’ promise of providing nine percent reservation to backward Muslims in Uttar Pradesh as “anti-constitutional”, saying she would oppose the decision “tooth and nail”.
“Congress’ promise to give nine percent reservation to backward Muslims is anti-constitutional as it would create a wedge in the society on the basis of religion. We would oppose tooth and nail any such move on the roads and in the Parliament,” she said. Bharti lashed out at Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for accusing the BJP government in Uttarakhand of not utilising Central funds and alleged that…