The upcoming West Bengal election has stirred up a lot of drama. The Congress party alongside the Left have now planned to form an alliance with Indian Secular Front which is headed by Abbas Siddiqui. He is a 34-year-old Muslim cleric at Furfura Sharif, a Sufi shrine situated in the Hooghly district. Siddique has earned a lot of backlash for his outrageous and fundamental comments during religious sermons.
He has formed ISF which claims to be the party that is the champion for the oppressed sections of the society. Many refuted that his party is an Islamic party that caters to the Muslim community of Bengal. CPI-M member Mohammad Salim clarified that the head of the party is a Dalit while other party members are too from the SC/ST community.
Earlier, the Sufi cleric was planning on forming a partnership with the Hyderabad based party All India Majlis Ittehad e Muslimeen led by Asaduddian Owasi. Besides Hyderabad and Bihar, Owasi influences the Bengali Muslims as well. So it makes sense for Siddique to join hands with him. However, Congress-Left has reached out to him for partnership.
People believe that the coalition between the parties is to garner the Muslim votes during the election. Not only this but it will also weaken the Muslim support from TMC.
Though ISF base is only limited to the specific district of South Bengal. There are fewer chances for him to win in these districts although he attracts a lot of Bengali speaking Muslim. Many Muslims believe that a cleric should not get involved in the field of politics. Some who hail from the Salafi school of thought consider Sufi shrines as apostates.
Members from within the Congress have criticised this pact saying that it goes against the ideals of Nehruvian secularism. Anand Sharma calls out this decision as rather “painful and shameful”.
BJP on the other hand is making use of this situation in attracting Hindu voters. With Congress, border lining itself to fundamentalism and regressive thinking has drastically made people stray from them. Many have already shifted their preference to BJP.
By the looks of it, the Bengal election has become polarizing in terms of religion. It has distracted from the promises of development that the political parties will offer.
