Maharashtra polls: Over 180 NGOs work to enrol Muslim voters, increase awareness | Mumbai news

MUMBAI: At least 180 NGOs and organisations have been working for months among Muslim voters to increase the community’s voter turnout, an endeavour that had positive results in the Lok Sabha polls. The organisations say that the turnout will be just as high in the assembly elections.

Muslim-dominated areas such as Shivaji Nagar, Mumbadevi, Byculla and Malegaon Central reported a higher turnout than their adjoining assembly segments in the Lok Sabha election. The organisations attribute this to unrest among Muslim voters as also the awareness generated by them among the voters over the past year.

The Marathi Muslim Seva Sangh has joined hands with over 180 NGOs and organisations working among Muslims for enrolment and to build awareness. The organisation has held meetings and awareness sessions among the community’s voters across the state. “This resulted in raising the voter turnout to over 60% in the Lok Sabha election, around 15% higher than the average in previous elections,” said Fakir Mehmood Thakur, head of the organisation. “We appeal to Muslims to support secular candidates and vote in the interest of the Constitution. We have joined hands with other organisations and religious heads for a better response. We have held more than 200 meetings across the state, and this has helped in increasing the voter turnout.”

Thakur said the fear among Muslim voters over the central government’s moves such as the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens also contributed to the high voting percentage among Muslims, and added that these issues remained in the state polls as well.

Shakir Shaikh, coordinator of the Maharashtra Democratic Forum, said the forum held at least 70 meetings in the state, including 18 in Muslim-dominated areas in Mumbai in the last two months. “Awareness and voter turnout used to be very poor among Muslims until recently,” he said. “Several issues such as the CAA, uniform civil code and the Waqf bill have spurred people to come out and vote. The building of awareness and the registration drive helped notch up the high turnout in the Lok Sabha polls. We have registered at least nine lakh new voters in Mumbai and the response has been very positive.”

The en masse voting by Muslims in favour of the opposition has been termed ‘vote jihad’ by BJP politicians like Kirit Somaiya and Nitesh Rane. Dismissing this, Shaikh pointed out that ‘jihad’ in Arabic meant ‘holy struggle’. “If the community is voting for change, what is so objectionable about it?” he retorted. “If Muslims are voting for non-Muslim candidates, how can it be linked with religion?”

Sarfaraz Arzoo, editor of the Urdu daily, Hindustan, said that such charges did not deter Muslims from voting. “Muslims have realised the power of their vote, of which the results were visible in the Lok Sabha polls,” he said. “In Muslim-dominated constituencies, the community’s votes, added to those by Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress voters, resulted in the defeat of parties constantly badmouthing the Muslim community. And anger against BJP politicians like Nitesh Rane for his derogatory words against Muslims persists. This will result in a high turnout again in the assembly polls.”

Hasina Khan of Bharat Jodo Abhiyan has also been working among Muslim voters. “We have enrolled hundreds of them until the last day of enrolment,” she said. “People stood in long queues under the scorching sun during the Lok Sabha polls, and I am sure the percentage will be as high in the assembly elections too.”