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Caravans to make Muslims politically aware

Special Correspondent

Will encourage the community to exercise their franchise and increase their voting percentage

Caravans will only raise issues significant for the constituencies; not to support any party
‘Community should actively participate in the political process to make its voice heard’

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan unit of the All India Milli Council has launched a series of caravans for generating political awareness in the Muslim community and increasing its voting percentage in the Rajasthan Assembly elections due later this year. The first caravan for the Muslim-dominated Mewat region was flagged off here over the weekend.

The “Karvan-e-Siyasi Bedari” (caravan for political awareness) will apprise Muslims of the significance of their votes while encouraging them to exercise their franchise and support the candidates on the basis of their “integrity and clean image”.

Milli Council’s State general secretary, noted lawyer Abdul Qayoom Akhtar, said the voting percentage of Muslims in the State had been consistently declining and had reached a meagre 40 per cent in the previous Assembly elections in 2003. “The community cannot expect its voice to be heard unless it actively participates in the political process,” he added.

The participants in the caravans will only raise the issues significant for the constituencies being visited and refrain from extending support to any particular party or specific candidate. Mr. Akhtar said the caravans would lay emphasis on convincing Muslims to treat casting of vote as a duty in the democracy and exercise franchise prudently.

The caravan to the Mewat region – flagged off by Islamic scholar and Rajasthan Muslim Forum’s convenor Qari Moinuddin – will cover eight Assembly constituencies in Alwar and Bharatpur districts in three days. It will visit remote villages and hamlets and call upon Muslims to go to polling stations in big numbers and make an “intelligent choice” in the polls.

Twenty-four more caravans will be sent to different areas across the State in the run-up to the Assembly elections. Mr. Akhtar affirmed that all charges of Muslims forming a “vote bank” and “Muslim appeasement” would fall flat if they themselves made themselves politically relevant by exercising their franchise. The Milli Council felt that the Bahujan Samaj Party’s attempts to make inroads into the State are not likely to succeed with both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress enjoying robust support among various sections of population. “In this situation, Muslims have to be extremely vigilant and ensure they do not subject themselves to be exploited by anyone,” said Mr. Akhtar.

Mr. Akhtar said the BJP, which had fielded only two Muslim candidates in the previous Rajasthan Assembly polls, is likely to give tickets to half-a-dozen Muslims in this year’s elections in keeping with its nation-wide efforts to project a secular face. This trend, he said, would throw up a new challenge before the community at a time when its role in the national life was being redefined.

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