Prashant Kishor, the political strategist working overtime to get Mamata Banerjee the throne of Bengal for the third time, has claimed time and again that the Chief Minister has the Muslim vote solidly with her. As the Muslims are 30 per cent of the voters, he projects it as a major handicap for the BJP.
This claim is based on an assumption that the Muslims act as a vote bank. It was never so in Bengal exactly, as the majority of Muslims of Muslim majority districts of Malda and Murshidabad had voted for the Congress all through, while the Muslims of South Bengal, who in 2019 stood solidly behind Mamata’s Trinamool Congress (TMC), had mostly voted for the Left till 2006.
But this time what can turn out to be bad news for the TMC and Kishor as well is the sudden rise of Abbas Siddique, a man in his 30s and a new entrant in politics. He is a cleric of Furfura Sharif, and is the founder of a religious organisation (Ahale Sunnatul Jamat). For years, he has preached a sort of radicalism before lakhs of his followers in southern Bengal. Though known as a fundamentalist thanks to his belligerent rants, he has joined the Left-Congress combine after forming his party Indian Secular Front (ISF).
Thanks to Abbas, a meeting of the Left-Congress-ISF at Brigade Parade Ground a month ago pulled quite a few lakh people. If he can convince a sizable section of his religious supporters to vote for his party, it can spoil Didi’s chance to return to power.
But can Abbas do it? Gaffur Seikh, a vegetable seller from Bhangar of Bashirhat, a Muslim majority block of North 24 Parganas, says, “Abbas may not get votes to the tune of the hullabaloo he has created, but some will definitely vote for him.” This has been echoed by many others too.
If Abbas pulls around 5 per cent vote, his party may not win many of the 40 seats he is contesting, but can surely derail the TMC.