Explained: How many supporters did the parties raise about Muslims? Congress fielded only 16 Muslims while SP fielded 4 Muslims.

New Delhi: The issue of Hindu-Muslim is resonating during the election campaign for Lok Sabha elections, 2024. Some are talking about giving reservation to Muslims while some are even calling them infiltrators. While BJP seems to be maintaining distance from Muslims, Congress and SP do not lag behind in calling themselves the leaders of Muslims. But, the reality is far away from all this. No party is very concerned about Muslims. This can be gauged from the fact that from Parliament to Legislative Assemblies, the representation of Muslims with a population of around 20 crores is very less. Even though the population of Muslims has increased, their representation in Parliament and legislatures has decreased. Let us understand why political parties keep distance from Muslims and which party gave how many tickets to Muslims.Congress fielded 16 candidates while SP fielded only 4 Muslim candidates.
This time Congress has fielded only 16 Muslim candidates in the elections. Whereas, SP has fielded only 4 Muslim candidates. India Alliance has fielded a total of 34 Muslim candidates in the elections. At the same time, RJD has fielded Muslim candidates on only 2 seats. In Maharashtra and Gujarat, Congress did not give ticket to even a single Muslim candidate. Whereas in the previous elections it has been fielding candidates on at least 1-2 seats.

This time BJP gave ticket to Bus 1
BJP had given Lok Sabha tickets to only 13 Muslims in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Not a single one of them achieved victory. Abdul Salam is the only Muslim candidate from BJP in the 2024 elections from Malappuram seat in Kerala. If he wins, he will be the first Muslim BJP candidate since 2014 to reach the Lok Sabha. This time BJP has fielded 430 candidates. The NDA alliance has sent a total of 4 Muslim candidates to the election arena this time.

Explained: To create division, the British had banned the recruitment of Muslims in the army, now neither caste nor reservation, nationalism is supreme.
Why do parties shy away from fielding Muslim candidates?
Professor Rajeev Ranjan Giri at Delhi University says that in any election, the reason for fielding less Muslim candidates is the appeasement policy of the parties. BJP may maintain distance from Muslims, but parties like Congress-SP also seem to be just pretending to be affectionate towards Muslims. Actually, any party gives ticket only to those who have more chances of winning. In this, factors like caste equations, religious equations, population, popularity and work performance compared to others are taken into account.

There was no representation in Parliament even according to population.
In the 1980s, the total population of Muslims used to be 11 percent. At that time the representation of Muslims in Parliament was 9 percent. Today the population of Muslims has reached 14 percent, but their representation in Parliament is less than 5 percent. In 2019, the representation of Muslims in the Lok Sabha was 4.97 percent. Earlier in 2014 this figure was 4.23 percent.

Not good conditions in state legislatures
More than 4,000 assembly members are elected to the legislatures of 28 states of the country. But here too the representation of Muslims is nominal. At present only 6 percent of these legislatures are Muslims. Even in UP, the country’s most populous state, there are about 16 percent Muslims, but there too only 7 percent are Muslims in the legislature.

1 BJP MP was Muslim in 2014, not even one in 2019
Modi government came to power for the first time in 2014. At that time, 30 Muslims had entered the country’s Parliament after winning the elections. Of these, only 1 MP was from BJP. At the same time, in the 2019 elections, 27 Muslims had become MPs in the 543-member Parliament. Not a single MP among them was from BJP.

Sachar Committee had given the reason, no improvement till dateIn 2006, the Sachar Committee, a committee formed by the government, had reported that the condition of Muslims in the country is worse than that of Dalits and tribals. Muslims are still far behind in literacy, earnings and access to higher education. The committee advocated political representation of Muslims. But, even after 18 years, no concrete policy could be made regarding Muslims.