ET Bureau With a total tally of 19 assembly seats, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) is the second-largest party in the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government. The party, which is contesting in 24 seats in this election, hopes to do better than last time, says the state general secretary, KPA Majeed. In an interview to ET, Majeed says the Left Democratic Front (LDF) is trying to split the Muslim vote with its propaganda that UDF has a secret pact with BJP. However, Majeed says that the Left Front’s ploy will not work this time as the people know that to fight BJP the support of a national party like Congress is essential. Excerpts:
How do you view the chances of both IUML and UDF in this election? The surveys done by some channels suggest LDF victory this time?
IUML is much ahead. We will win comfortably in most of the seats. UDF’s prospects are good in North Kerala. Our view as far as surveys are concerned is that the correct position will be known only in the last two weeks. The impartial voters or the voters who does not have any politics will take a decision only towards the end of the campaign period. But the surveys were done much earlier.
CPM’s campaign highlighting the growth of BJP is likely to have an impact on the Muslim votes. How do you propose to stop the diversion of Muslim votes to the Left Front?
CPM always take up some important emotional issues while they approach elections. In the past they have raised the Iraq war and the plight of Saddam Hussein during an election time to attract Muslim votes. During the last local body election they took up the “beef” issue. Now they have started the campaign that there is an alliance between the UDF and BJP. UDF will never enter into such a pact with them. Let me remind you that the BJP has not been able to open its account in Kerala so far. Even in Bengal the CPM had to associate with Congress to keep BJP and Trinamool Congress away. Congress is a national party. Tomorrow this arrangement can happen in Kerala also. So their campaign against us is not going to work anymore.
What are the issues that you raise before the voters?
We focus on the development work and the welfare measures done by the UDF government. For example, the government renamed one of the lotteries of the state government lottery department and set apart the amount from it for meeting the health needs of the people. Free cochlear implants for deaf and dumb children, financial assistance for other surgical intervention, etc were provided for the poor and needy. The also tell the people about the politics of violence practised by CPM. It was just the other day that one CPM man died in an accident while making country bombs.
Despite having 24 seats the IUML has not given a single seat to a woman candidate. There are protest from your own community about this. Your comments?
Our party is a small one. It has a limited number of seats only. For these seats we select candidates based on factors like their chances of victory, experience etc. When all these factors are considered we encounter some difficulties in offering seats to women. But we compensate this by giving them key posts in many organisations like for example, the human rights bodies or state government corporations. As for criticism from our own community, I can tell you that we will not turn our back against criticism. We will try to approach it in the right spirit.
How do you view the chances of both IUML and UDF in this election? The surveys done by some channels suggest LDF victory this time?
IUML is much ahead. We will win comfortably in most of the seats. UDF’s prospects are good in North Kerala. Our view as far as surveys are concerned is that the correct position will be known only in the last two weeks. The impartial voters or the voters who does not have any politics will take a decision only towards the end of the campaign period. But the surveys were done much earlier.
CPM’s campaign highlighting the growth of BJP is likely to have an impact on the Muslim votes. How do you propose to stop the diversion of Muslim votes to the Left Front?
CPM always take up some important emotional issues while they approach elections. In the past they have raised the Iraq war and the plight of Saddam Hussein during an election time to attract Muslim votes. During the last local body election they took up the “beef” issue. Now they have started the campaign that there is an alliance between the UDF and BJP. UDF will never enter into such a pact with them. Let me remind you that the BJP has not been able to open its account in Kerala so far. Even in Bengal the CPM had to associate with Congress to keep BJP and Trinamool Congress away. Congress is a national party. Tomorrow this arrangement can happen in Kerala also. So their campaign against us is not going to work anymore.
What are the issues that you raise before the voters?
We focus on the development work and the welfare measures done by the UDF government. For example, the government renamed one of the lotteries of the state government lottery department and set apart the amount from it for meeting the health needs of the people. Free cochlear implants for deaf and dumb children, financial assistance for other surgical intervention, etc were provided for the poor and needy. The also tell the people about the politics of violence practised by CPM. It was just the other day that one CPM man died in an accident while making country bombs.
Despite having 24 seats the IUML has not given a single seat to a woman candidate. There are protest from your own community about this. Your comments?
Our party is a small one. It has a limited number of seats only. For these seats we select candidates based on factors like their chances of victory, experience etc. When all these factors are considered we encounter some difficulties in offering seats to women. But we compensate this by giving them key posts in many organisations like for example, the human rights bodies or state government corporations. As for criticism from our own community, I can tell you that we will not turn our back against criticism. We will try to approach it in the right spirit.
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