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Bangalore News
Congress seeks influential muslim vote, dubs Janata Dal (S) as BJP B team to scare away minority voters away from the regional party
May 14, 2018
Bangalore :In its all-out attack to re-capture Karnataka and make its gateway to enter South India, the BJP has left no stone unturned to target every section of the society.
Significant in the BJP strategy is its outreach for Muslims, a community that makes a difference in 10 per cent of the seats of the total strength of the Karnataka assembly that went to polls on May 12. But political analysts are of the opinion that the Muslim vote can influence the outcome in many more seats spread across the state. Which is why the clamour for their vote.
Counting of votes for the 224-member assembly polls will take place on Tuesday, May 15.
But how does the BJP hope to get the Muslim community on its side, when some miscreants belonging to the pro-Hindu organisations targeted the Muslim community in their hate campaigns and anti-beef programmes?
The Congress has used the BJP as the scare factor when it mounted a campaign to paint the BJP as the guiding force behind the incidents of targeted violence against members of the minority community.
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The Congress game plan is to garner as much as the minority vote as possible knowing fully well that this can make the difference between a victory and defeat in an assembly seat in tightly fought triangular contests. The Congress appears convinced that the BJP will not get this minority vote. But what it wants to prevent is the consolidation of the minority vote behind Janata Dal (S) led by former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and hence its persistent attack that the JD (S) was the B-team of the BJP.
The BJP on the other hand, consistent with its no appeasement to anyone, came out with a poll promise that if carried out would result in a war against wrong doings in the Wakf board properties, worth close to Rs 2,40,000 crores, and ensure that they are returned to the Board. The explosive report prepared by the then Minorities Welfare Board chief Anwar Manapadi nailed the irregularities in the Wakf Board properties and how the properties belonging to the masses were occupied by the high and mighty and how profitable educational institutions were run from these illegally occupied properties.
“It is the for the first time that any political party has declared in its manifesto, a promise to get back the Wakf Board properties,” Anwar Manapadi told the correspondent in Bangalore.
For sure, this is a promise that will be kept by the Yeddyurappa government that will take oath after winning absolute majority in the general elections, he said.
In fact, it was the pioneering work done by Manapadi and the tenacity and determination that he pursued his report and saw it to its logical conclusion – enactment of related laws that enable retract and recover the illegally occupied Wakf Board properties in Karnataka. Many schools, colleges and educational institutions and hospitals, all making profits, are running in these properties.
Many big people are involved in the scam, said another minority leader, preferring anonymity. In fact all of them would be dreading the return of the BJP government, which will ensure that justice is done in the case and properties returned to the Wakf board and these are enjoyed by the people and not occupied by few big guns from politics and business.
In fact, Manipaddy report sought a probe by Lokayukta into the whole scam, which was rejected by the State government. On a host of his recommendations, the government either rejected them or maintained that it no powers on the matter.
It remains to be seen as to how the BJP’s poll promise is seen by voters from the minority community and if they endorse the demand for probe into the scam in Wakf Board properties.
