Neither Congress nor BJP: Muslims trust regional parties more

While the Muslim vote might be an axis that the national parties have wrapped themselves around to launch pitted battles against one other, leaders of the community are not falling for any of it. In an interview with The Economic Times, leading Muslim clerics from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have expressed their lack of trust in either Congress or the BJP. In what might be music to the ears of the likes of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Nitish Kumar and Mamata Banerjee, they have said that they are only willing to place their faith on regional parties. ET interviewed two leaders, Maulana Muhammad Wali Rahmani and Maulana Syed Kalbe Jawad Naqvi, from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, respectively. They are also part of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. [caption id=“attachment_981961” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representative image. AFP.[/caption] While both of them were of the opinion that the Congress is using feigned sympathy for the Muslims as a shield to hide its failures, it didn’t spare the BJP for fielding Narendra Modi as its star campaigner and candidate for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. ET quotes Naqvi:

“It is not in the interest of Muslims to have one party with absolute majority at the Centre because our experience with Congress has shown that minorities are then ignored. But a coalition government safeguards the rights of minorities better,” said Maulana Kalbe Jawad, a Shia leader from Lucknow.

Rahmani added that Muslims in the country will no more be swayed by anti-Modi rants. He said that Modi doesn’t worry or scare them anymore.

“Congress thinks Muslims are worried because of the Modi factor. But Muslims are not as worried as they think. They will see what promises Congress made to them since 2004 and how much has been implemented. We have got nothing.

While there seems to be no dearth of bad news for the Congress, this might hit them very hard! Read the complete ET article here.