This refers to the editorial, “Congress's scarecrow” (October 17).
You are right in saying that the situation of Muslims in India has not tangibly changed even after independence — a long period since then has mostly been under the Congress regimes — and the facts and figures about their lagging in all social indices stand testimony to this. In fact, the heart of political leaders begins to brim over with love for the community only when elections come.
With the notion of a Third Front, the brainchild of the Samajwadi Party supremo, still in doldrums, Muslims are being seen as floating voters living in a state of indecision over whom to choose between the UPA and the NDA, as both have in one way or the other let them down. Your plea that Maulana Mahmood Madani's relevant observation must not be seen through the religious prism and that parties should not seek negative votes by invoking the communal bogey, must go down well with political parties.