New Delhi: Politics of polarisation has been a part of the larger battle on the ground in several constituencies where Assembly elections were held recently, with Muslim candidates put up by the Congress and its allies having triumphed in minority-influenced areas.
In Assam, where polls were held across 126 seats in the state, Monday’s results show that 18 out of 19 Assembly seats that the Congress won are by Muslims.
Only one among the 79 non-Muslim candidates fielded by the party has managed to succeed.
Going by the available results till now, a political debate has been set off where a national party like the Congress has apparently lost its acceptance pan-Assam and has decided to focus on a selective vote bank.
In comparison, overall, the ‘grand old party’ had cornered 29 seats in 2021, with its then-alliance partners having won 21 more. Meanwhile, its new-found ally, the Akhil Gogoi-led Raijor Dal, has won two seats, of which one is a Muslim and the other the founder himself, who is under investigation by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
The probe agency has termed him “a kingpin of Maoist activities in the state”. The activist has, however, denied the charge, claiming that cases against him were a result of “political vendetta”.
Meanwhile, the BJP broke out of the two consecutive election results limited to 60 seats in 2016 and 2021 in the 126-strong Assam Assembly. It has managed to score wins in 82 constituencies, achieving a majority on its own for the first time.
Other National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners have cornered 20 more seats.
In adjacent West Bengal, the Congress won two of the 294 seats in the Assembly, where both are from the Muslim community and represent minority-dominated parts.
In fact, with 63 Muslim candidates, the Congress outdid its former ally, the Trinamool Congress, in giving tickets to the minority community in the state.
The outgoing dispensation, itself promoting minority appeasement politics, had propped up 47 Muslim candidates.
In the South, where voters in Kerala have elected 35 Muslim MLAs in an Assembly of 140, there are 30 from the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) coalition.
The UDF returned to power in the state, ousting the Left Democratic Front (LDF) after a decade. Of them, as many as 22 Muslim MLAs out of the total of 27 fielded by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) have won.
For the first time ever, the UDF ally will have a female candidate representing it in the state Assembly.
Among other Muslim MLAs elected this time are eight from the Congress, which is five more than 2021, four from the CPI-M, registering five below its 2021 numbers, and one from the CPI.
In 2021, the Kerala Assembly altogether had a total of 29 Muslim MLAs. In Tamil Nadu, where the Assembly has a total of 234 members, the Congress had nominated two Muslims, with one of them registering a win.
Incidentally, Muslims fielded by Congress-led alliances in both Kerala and Assam constitute an over-80 per cent strike-rate in terms of victories. Thus, the final tally from Assembly elections 2026 establish the fact that even while claiming otherwise, it is the Congress that has largely manipulated political polarisation.
Through times, every successive poll victory for the party has depended on minority faces, specially from the Muslim-dominated parts of any state going to the hustings.
(IANS)
