By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh): In line with some Muslim organizations, religious or otherwise, contemplating to entre electoral politics, the Uttar Pradesh-based All India Muslim Forum has indicated to field 15-20 candidates in the state in the coming Lok Sabha election.
The organization held its representative executive committee meeting on 10th August in Lucknow which was attended by about 500 delegates.
The executive committee has appointed a 10-member Steering Committee with Dr. M. K. Sherwani as its chairman. The committee will survey the Muslim-dominated Parliamentary constituencies in U.P. to work out the feasibility of contesting at least 15-20 seats. The organization will appeal to all secular forces “to join hands with it to defeat the candidates of communal parties.”
Founded in 1966, All India Muslim Forum has been active in electoral politics for last many years. They fielded four candidates in the last national election and six in the previous one. The party is yet to open account.
Why are you fielding candidates when you are not going to win? “We want to instill a sense of confidence in the minds of Muslims and we want to remind them that they must not waste their votes in the name of defeating BJP,” said Dr. M. K. Sherwani to TwoCircles.net.
All India Muslim Forum has asked all secular parties to get united and form a single front to defeat BJP. Is it feasible when every secular leader from Mayawati to Paswan to Lalu wants to become prime minister? “If they are sincere to defeat the BJP, they must unite,” said Sherwani. The fact is that secular parties do not want to defeat BJP. Had it been so, they would have formed a single front, he continued.
The executive committee meeting of All India Muslim Forum was held to elect new office bearers including the president. The present president Dr. Mustafa Kamal Sherwani proposed the name of Syed Rafat for the post who was unanimously elected as the new president of the party.
The meeting passed a political resolution in which secular parties have been criticized. The organization has expressed “its deep regret over the utter failure of the so-called secular forces of the country to contain the growing tide of fascism and consequent victimization of Muslims,” the resolution said.
“The repeated experiences of the past five decades have abundantly demonstrated that these secular forces have always used the ‘defeat BJP slogan’ only as a mechanism to keep the Muslim community under permanent subjugation” reads the resolution.
The Steering Committee will also explore the possibility of forming a broad conglomeration of all Muslim-based political parties both within and outside U.P.