New Delhi: The burden of communal identities hangs heavy on some candidates in the first phase of voting for the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh. And who better to showcase this than Imran Masood, the Congress candidate in Saharanpur.
After two successive defeats, Masood, a former MLA who hails from a prominent political family, will try his luck for the third time as a nominee of the Samajwadi Party-Congress INDIA bloc. Although Masood remains a popular leader with secular credentials, when it comes to electoral battles, he always falls short. Many believe his communal identity as a Muslim comes in his way at the moment of reckoning.
There is a saying about Masood in his native district that he is seen as an approachable and secular leader by people across communities. However, on voting day, he is often reduced to being a Muslim.
It is this factor that is once again under test as Masood is tied in a three-way contest with the BJP and the BSP. His main opponent is the BJP candidate and former MP Raghav Lakhanpal. The BSP candidate, Majid Ali, a rich businessman and brother of actor Kamaal R. Khan, is also a Muslim. Not only does Masood face the task of preventing the division of Muslim votes, he also needs to consolidate the support of a decent section of the Hindu votes to secure this seat.
“You get overpowered by emotions and vote for him (Lakhanpal). He has only one achievement, that he is a Hindu and I am a Muslim. He has nothing else over me,” Masood said at a recent meeting with people belonging to the Hindu community during his campaign.
If Hindu voters dismiss him merely for his identity, it would hurt him, Masood further said in an emotional pitch to reach out to the majority community. “It would cause me pain if you give him preference over me even if I do 100 times more for you than he has [done]. He, despite being a Hindu, does nothing for you. But I am a man of patience. These things never mattered to me and will not matter, inshallah,” Masood said.
“I will only make one promise, that till I am alive, I will continue to maintain my relationship with you in this manner,” he added.
To finally break the jinx in 2024, Masood campaigned harder among Hindu castes this time, especially Gurjars, Sainis and Rajputs.
Masood’s electoral journey
The nephew of former five-time MP Rasheed Masood, Imran Masood has had a bad run in electoral politics despite always being in the running.
He was elected chairman of Saharanpur Nagar Palika Parishad in 2006 and went on to win his first and only MLA election in 2007 as an independent candidate. In 2012 and 2017, he lost the assembly election from Nakur by margins of around 4,500 and 4,000 votes, respectively.
Masood has also contested two Lok Sabha elections. In 2014, when he was caught in a controversy after an old video of him threatening to chop Narendra Modi surfaced during the election, he stood second. He lost to the BJP’s Lakhanpal by 65,000 votes, relegating the BSP and SP to the third and fourth positions. In 2019, when the BSP and SP contested together, the seat was won by the BSP’s Fazlur Rehman. However, Masood, though securing a third spot, managed to get over two lakh votes.
The eight seats in UP that will vote on April 19 have a Muslim population much above the state average of 20%. In Moradabad, Rampur, Saharanpur, Kairana, Bijnor and Muzaffarnagar, it either touches 40% or crosses it comfortably. This means that this region is also the source of substantial Muslim representation to the Lok Sabha. Therefore, the first phase will not only set the trend for the electoral battle between the NDA and the INDIA bloc, but also determine if the Muslim representation in the Lok Sabha will increase or decrease.
In 2014, when the election was highly communalised, not a single Muslim MP was elected in UP. That figure went up to six in 2019 when the SP-BSP contested together. Out of the nine seats on which Muslims were fielded, they won six, including five in west UP. This year, the INDIA bloc has fielded six Muslims, five of them in west UP.
On April 19, the fate of three Muslim candidates of the INDIA bloc will be sealed – Imran Masood, Iqra Hasan and Maulana Mohibullah.
Hasan and Mohibullah are fighting in Kairana and Rampur. The latter, a maulvi based in Delhi, was a surprise late entrant into electoral politics this season after the SP failed to get a consensus candidate following protests by followers of jailed senior leader Mohammad Azam Khan. The BSP, contesting alone, has nominated Muslims in Saharanpur, Pilibhit, Moradabad and Rampur, potentially playing a spoiler for the INDIA Bloc.
UP’s Muslim representation
While the result in Kairana – which witnessed a high-pitched communal politics by the BJP over the years, especially after the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots – will determine whether the communal divide has reduced, Moradabad, which falls in the Rohilkhand region, will test the political pragmatism of Muslim voters.
The SP dropped its sitting MP S.T. Hasan and fielded Ruchi Veera, an ex-MLA from the Hindu Bania community, in his place. Veera contested the last election from Bijnor. She faces the task of uniting Muslim voters in the face of dissent by Hasan, who feels he was unduly dropped. Many Muslims feel Moradabad should have had a Muslim candidate amid their shrinking representation in power.
On April 17, while addressing a public meeting, Veera tried to underline her secular credentials.
“My family has done a lot in the field of education and runs many schools and colleges in the region. My family never saw Hindus and Muslims through a different lens, be it in admissions, jobs or development,” said Veera.
A close-aide of the incarcerated leader Azam Khan, Veera said Khan had set a “precedent” of secularism and provided education to the masses, as she lamented his targeting by the Yogi Adityanath government.
“Aamne samne ka chunav hain (It is a one-on-one contest),” Veera said, requesting voters to not divide their votes by supporting the BSP’s Muslim candidate.
“I am grateful to my Muslim brothers who entrusted their faith in a Hindu woman. I am receiving their dua and they are working hard on the booths in large numbers,” she said. Veera also underlined a growing anxiety among Muslim voters, about possibilities of preventing them from casting their votes. She asked voters to carry multiple identification cards to ensure they return only after confirming their vote.
“They might find some trivial faults in your ID proof…they might say, ‘the photo is old, the photo is blurry, there is a spelling mistake…’so be sure to carry more than one ID proof,” she said.
