As BJP, TMC dive deep, Congress bastion Malda sees battle for Muslim votes

MALDA: It is a three-cornered contest in Malda, one of the last Congress bastions in West Bengal, which goes to polls on Tuesday in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections, and Muslim votes are likely to settle the fight for the seat.
Muslims form a major chunk of the electorate in both the Malda North and the Malda South seats, which have stayed with the Congress for almost 40 years, and there is a distinct buzz about the need for a change this time.
And that buzz has created a space, which the BJP and the TMC are vying for.
While the Congress has pitted Isha Khan Choudhury against sitting Congress MP and now TMC nominee Mausam Noor - Ghani Khan's nephew and niece respectively - from Malda North, the BJP has fielded former CPM leader Khagen Murmu in the seat.
In Malda South, sitting Congress MP Abu Hasem Khan, Ghani Khan's brother, is contesting against Moazzem Hossain of the TMC and Sreerupa Mitra Choudhury of the BJP.
"How long can we vote for these people who are still using the name of their dead dada (brother), mama (maternal uncle) for votes," Bhaskar Ghosh (22) asked, referring to the family of Ghani Khan Choudhury, the late eight-time MP who won consecutively between 1980 and 2004, followed by his family members in both the constituencies separated by the delimitation in 2009.
For Ghosh, a student who works at a computer repair shop in Kaliachak, the TMC might benefit from the "waning magic of Ghani Khan" in the Maldaha South Lok Sabha seat, where riots had broken out in January 2016 over purported derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad.
However, he agrees with other locals that the riots opened the doors for the BJP to emerge as a key player in the area, leading to the saffron party's surprising win in the assembly seat of Baishnabnagar, which has a Muslim population of around 52 per cent.
"Dalubabu (Abu Hasem Khan, the sitting MP from Malda Dakshin) is a spent force here. He comes here only when there is election and forgets about us. All he does when he comes here is talk of Ghani Khan. We don't want to know what they have done for us in the past. We want to know what they can do now," Ghosh added.
"No Hindu vote is going to Dalubabu this time. However, we are the minority here, so he could still win," Ranjan Haldar (29), who runs a business in the area, said.
BJP national secretary and Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvarghi, who was in Malda to campaign for Murmu, indicated that the party had made major inroads and was a serious threat to the Congress this time.
"There is now a fervour for the BJP. Our workers have worked tirelessly. The buzz around the party is more than it was in 2014. This politics of appeasement (by ruling TMC in the state) had to end," Vijayvarghi told PTI
"The Congress had tried to isolate Muslims from Narendra Modi. But we truly believe in Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas. We are addressing the people's basic issues, be it Hindus or Muslims. It is a myth that Muslims are anti-Modi," he added.
Murmu, once a grassroots CPM leader, said that he is confident of retaining his votes from 2014 when he ended second to Noor in Malda North.
However, as a BJP candidate this time, he is unlikely to bag the Muslim votes.
"What the BJP has done is to ensure that there is polarisation. While some Hindus may vote for the BJP, it is difficult to say if Ghani Khan loyalists will move en masse. What we are sure of is that we are not voting for them. The problem is that the votes in our community also might split between the Congress and the TMC, and herein lies the problem," Md Emazuddin (45), a businessman from Ratua, which falls under Malda North, said.
Days after the Pulwama terror attack and the resultant air strikes, Malda saw a flurry of activities from BJP workers, recalled locals.
"They organised bike rallies, displayed photos of the dead soldiers and the Muslim community organised marches to condemn the attack. It was tense, the city was tethering between jubilance and anxiety," Ajwarul, a small business owner in Ratua, said.
However, just 40 km away in Gazole, people feel Mamata Banerjee is the answer to the city's communally tense atmosphere. The TMC will clinch the Malda North seat, with both the Muslims and Hindus voting in its favour, they opined.
"Most of the roads that you see here are because of her. She has ensured our children go to school and free uniform and books are provided to them. No one else has done such much for us," Abdul Qayum, a labourer in Gazole, said.
Both communities in the constituency praised Mamata Banerjee for her Kanyashree scheme and the pension scheme for the aged. The TMC-led government's scheme promoting education is also a big hit with both communities, most of whom survive on small businesses or work as labourers.
Most people here said they were hit hard by demonetisation and the GST, and are open to change.
Meanwhile, Congress' Isha Khan Choudhury, blamed the chief minister for creating space for the saffron party in the area.
"Mamata has played into the hands of the BJP. Her politics has created a vacuum in which the BJP sees hope. However, we are not worried. If there are free and fair elections, we will win," Choudhury said.
The Congress has virtually been given a walkover by the Left in both these seats, with CPM voters openly pledging support to Congress candidates.
But for TMC's Noor, the fight in Malda is Didi vs Modi.
"The TMC has emerged as the only secular force which can fight the polarisation of the BJP," Noor, through whom the TMC is trying to woo Congress voters, said.
However, her tag as a "betrayer", by both her party and her family, is a sore issue with many TMC supporters.
As voting was underway on Tuesday, the two seats in Malda could be anyone's game.