Eye on Muslim votes, fresh alignments emerge in Bengal

KOlkata: With littler oppositeness parties workings to fall in custody to form ‘anti-TMC’, ‘anti-BJP’ groupings to corner their share of the Muslim vote in the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections, there could be a multi way split of minority community electorate which is estimated to be at least 30% of the state’s 91.27 million (as per 2011 Census).The ruling Trinamool Congress has been getting the lion’s share of the Muslim vote in the state ever since the Mamata Banerjee-led party overthrew the Left Front in 2011.The possibility of new political alignments emerged on Thursday when the Congress, which once controlled the Muslim-majority districts of Murshidabad and Malda, decided to drop its old ally, the CPI(M), and contest on its own. The TMC has repeatedly rejected any pre-poll truck with the grand old party in West Bengal.The development came weeks after Humayun Kabir, TMC’s Bharatpur legislator from Murshidabad, was suspended for laying the foundation stone of a mosque modelled on Ayodhya’s Babri Masjid. Going ahead, Kabir formed his own outfit, the Janata Unnayan Party, and held talks with CPI(M) state secretary Mohd Salim to form an alliance against TMC and the Bharatiya Janata Party.“In Murshidabad and Malda, our alliance with the Congress increased the opposition vote share in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. We even defeated TMC in 2023 in the Sagardighi assembly bypoll in Murshidabad. TMC later persuaded our winner to switch camps,” Salim told HT on Friday.As allies in the 2021 state polls, the Congress and Left could not win any seat in the 294-member legislative assembly but Salim said the alliance symbolised a secular alternative. The only non-BJP opposition member in the assembly, Indian Secular Front (ISF) leader Nawsad Siddiqui, declared last week that he is once again open to an alliance with the Left and “like-minded” forces.“TMC wants the 70:30 binary to continue while we want all secular forces to come together. We will do our best to ensure that there is no split in votes. It seems the Congress doesn’t want that but its workers at the grassroots are not anti-Left. Our workers are having talks with them,” Salim added.Although Salim’s meeting with Humayun Kabir did not go down well with Left Front partners such as Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party and the issue led to a hot exchange at a Front meeting on Thursday, Salim said talks can be held with anyone in the interest of a broader alliance.“We are talking to all parties, groups and individuals to maximise anti-TMC, anti-BJP votes. Some may work, some may not. This was the stand we adopted at our party Congress in 2025,” Salim said.Kabir claimed that he considers no party, including Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM), as untouchable in the battle ahead.“I was in the Congress for 30 years. Its decision is nothing short of its surrender to TMC. Congress won’t win a single seat. Those who want to keep BJP out of power and counter TMC should come under one umbrella. No party, including AIMIM, is untouchable. A big front is coming up,” Kabir told HT.In 2020, when AIMIM won five seats in the Bihar assembly polls and was accused by the Congress of splitting Muslim votes to help the BJP, Owaisi announced that his party would contest the Bengal polls in 2021. The plans failed and 21 AIMIM members joined TMC in November 2020.AIMIM’s Bengal unit president Imran Solanki said, “We have got in touch with several parties this year to formulate a strategy.”Some Muslim clerics told HT that they have witnessed changes in minority community members.Md Yahiya, chairman, West Bengal Imams Association, said: “Corruption by TMC’s grassroots level leaders seems to have disillusioned Muslims who earlier had a soft corner for the ruling party. We have received information that AIMIM is entering the picture.”During the 2011 census, the Muslim population was predominantly high in the districts of Murshidabad (66.28%), Malda (51.27%) and North Dinajpur (49.92%). In South 24 Parganas, located adjacent to Kolkata, it was 35.57 %, while in Birbhum, the figure was 37.06%.The community can influence poll results in at least 120 of Bengal’s 294 seats, according to surveys by the BJP and TMC. BJP won 77 seats in 2021 while TMC grabbed 213.