The Shiv Sena on Sunday stirred hornets’ nest by renewing its old demand for revocation of the voting rights of Muslims on the premise that they would not prosper as long as their community was used as a vote bank by leaders of the likes of All India Majlis-e-Ittihadul-Muslimeen (MIM) Asaduddin Owaisi. Reviving the demand for disenfranchisement of Muslims made by late Sena chief Bal Thackeray way back in 2000, Sena’s MP and spokesperson Sanjay Raut said that Muslims would not have no future in the country till such time they were used as pawns by politicians of different hues in their vote bank politics.
“Vote bank politics has long been played in the name of the Muslims’ plight, their helplessness and ignorance. Earlier, the Congress used to have a control over the Muslim vote bank. But the Congress’ monopoly over Muslim ended quite some time ago. Now, every candidate who calls himself goes out of the way to ensure against the presence of a electoral rival who has the capacity to corner Muslim votes,” Raut said, as he alleged that the Congress had offered to the MIM to ensure against the presence of its candidate in the Bandra (East) by-polls.
In his weekly column published by Sena’s official mouth-piece, Saamana, Raut said, “Till such time they are used pawns in vote bank politics, Muslims have no future in the country. That’s why Balasaheb had said years ago that it was necessary to revoke voting rights of Muslim to end vote bank politics”. Raut said that the “secular masks” of all the so-called secular political parties would come off the moment the voting rights of Muslims were revoked.
In a hard-hitting column in which he dubbed MIM and Owaisi brothers as “vicious snakes” that spewed communal poison on Muslims and “exploited” the minority community members to the hilt, Raut hit out at the Owaisi brothers for daring Sena president Uddhav Thackeray to come to Hyderabad. “Owaisi has dared us to come to Hyderabad. But we want to ask him if Hyderabad is in India or in lahore, Karachi or Peshawar. The pride of Marathis is known in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kandahar as well,” Raut said.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Congress demanded that Raut be disqualified as a Member of Parliament for his “objectionable” statements that sought to create communal disharmony in the society. “Whatever Raut has said is unconstitutional. He has no business to demand disenfranchisement of Muslims. He should be disqualified as a Rajya Sabha member for his objectionable statement,” Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Sachin Sawant said in a statement.
In a statement issued here, AAP spokesperson Preeti Sharma Menon also demanded that the Sena mouth-piece Saamana be suspended and the publishers be prosecuted. “The AAP sees this article as part of bigger conspiracy to push the nation in communal riots. Ever since Narendra Modi has taken over as the PM, outfits like the VHP, RSS, Bajrang Dal etc. have been spreading hatred through sustained communal campaigns like “Ghar Wapsi” and “love Jehad”.
Their own leaders and MPs have been making statements to incite violence and divide society on communal lines. The silence of the Prime Minister and his party over the issue only confirms that such campaigns are part of BJP’s hidden agenda,” she said. Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena gave a new spin to Raut’s statement by saying that Raut was not actually clamouring for disenfranchisement of Muslims but was merely speaking against the “appeasement politics” and the violation of fundamental rights of Muslim women.
“Raut has tried to say that to achieve development in every sphere of life, the politics of appeasement should be eschewed as it is not in the interest of Muslims. These people are only misguiding the community,” Sena MlC and spokesperson Neelam Gorhe said.