Cong blaming bad leadership on us: Muslim leaders slam Antony 'escapism'

Senior Congress leader AK Antony’s headline grabbing statement that the party’s secular image had taken a beating because of ‘doubts in minds of people’ that it was inclined towards minorities, has drawn sharp criticism from Muslim leaders for being out of sync with ground realities. The Congress state president’s clarification that Antony’s remarks were “Kerala-centric” doesn’t seem to have laid the controversy to rest and the BJP, of course, is doing all it can to trumpet Anthony’s statement as a vindication of its stand. Warning that such a stance would only ‘hurt the Congress’ in future, Muslim leaders point to the UPA’s abysmal record in delivering the promises that it had made to the community and its failure to address issues of police excesses against innocent Muslim youth. [caption id=“attachment_1597243” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PTI[/caption] “The Congress is trying to shift the blame for their failure (in the Lok Sabha polls) from their own leadership. It is their leadership, their PM, their President, and their PM-designate that has failed them. They cannot blame the Muslims for this. They should be looking inward and finding the real reasons and correcting them. Instead, what we are seeing is escapism. This will hurt them. They will not be able to come back if they have this kind of mindset and this kind of thinking,” said Zafarul-Islam Khan, president of the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat (AIMMM), an umbrella-body of Muslim organisations. Muslim leaders also say that contrary to Antony’s statement, the Congress party has seen a substantial erosion of support over the years among the Muslim community for exactly the opposite reason. “I think this is entirely contrary to the facts. Rather than saying that the Congress did a lot for Muslims and so its secular image has been tarnished, it is the other way around. The Congress was not at all sincere in behaving as a secular party… They did not ensure justice to the minorities. They were not honest and sincere in checking communal and fascist forces…During the UPA government, we were demanding that the Prevention of Communal Violence Bill be passed, but the Congress was never sincere about seeing it through,” said Salim Engineer, spokesperson of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. Asked what he made of a senior leader like Antony making such a statement, Engineer said, “The Congress wants the advantage of both. On the one hand, they want to please the majority community and on the other hand they want to ensure that the Muslim community acts as a vote-bank for them. But now they have to choose which way they want to go - whether they want to embrace a Hindutva policy or be a hard-core secular party. The party has to decide.” Questioning the basis for Antony’s claim, Muslim leaders point to theUPA’s failure during its ten year rule to fulfil any of the key promises that it had made to the community. “On what basis can we say that the party was pro-Muslim or pro-Minority or that it was tilting towards Muslim community? For example, the recommendations of the Sachar Committee have not been implemented, the Ranganath Mishra Commission report too has not been implemented, and the Prevention of Communal Violence Bill was not even tabled in Parliament. On the issue of the arrest of innocent Muslims, despite various delegations meeting the PM and Sonia Gandhi and the Home Minister, no action was taken,” said SQR Ilyas, general secretary of the Welfare Party of India. Such statements, according to Ilyas, reflect the party’s frustration with the election outcome. “They are unable to analyse the election result. The basic reason why the party did not garner votes is poor leadership,” he said. Relating the party’s progressive erosion of support over the years among what were once its traditional vote-banks, Ilyas said, “They first lost the upper-caste vote-bank to the BJP, then the Dalit vote to Dalit parties. And then finally they lost the Muslim support to secular alternatives. If they want to regain power, they have to regain the confidence of these sections of the society. If we look at UPA I and UPAII, there were many good policies and schemes – MNREGA, RTE, RTI. But they were not able to cash in on them because of lack of leadership.”