Balia:
Rahul Gandhi has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to making reservation for Muslims, a major election issue for Uttar Pradesh. Currently on a whirlwind campaign tour of East UP, the congress general secretary is in Azamgarh district, focusing now on the Ansari weavers.
After announcing the Rs 3000 crore package for backward Ansari weavers, Mr Gandhi is testing political waters in Azamgarh. He is attempting a tectonic shift in loyalties of the Muslim voters in the state; something Which he hopes will help him alter the political landscape in the favour of the congress. And for this, Mr Gandhi is going all out and his attacks are no longer veiled.
"Mulayam Singh once said to me that 'do whatever you want, the Muslims will only vote for me.' If you have the courage put a promise of 18 percent reservation in your manifesto'," Mr Gandhi said during his rally in Balia yesterday.
"Mulayam has been the CM thrice and Mayawati four times. But not once they spoke about reservation (for Muslims) when they were chief ministers, not once did they mention reservation," he said during election meetings.
27-year-old Faizan Ahmed, a weaver, was showered with praise and chocolates by the Congress leader yesterday for this game-changing idea.
But there is also bitterness in the air, Which is threatening to derail the effort. Shahdab Mister, whose son Mohammad Faiz is an accused in the Ahmedabad, Delhi and Jaipur serial blasts, was promised justice by Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh. Even two years after he was promised a fair and speedy trial, little has happened on the ground to make him believe that justice is on its way.
"We are still waiting for any semblance of justice," says Shahdam Mister.
The entire exercise may have made Mr Gandhi realise that the Muslim voter perhaps the hardest one to please and and plays harder to get. Political loyalties generally don't shift overnight, but the quota for backward Muslims and the weavers packagae are Mr Gandhi's magic wands this election. It will be interesting to see Whether the Muslims will be spellbound or will they see this as a mere illusion and snap out of it.