ALIGARH, India, 3 May — The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh is expected to be installed next week.
The BSP Muslim legislators are feeling the heat of Muslim community ire, protests and pressures. Upset over the BSP-BJP tie-up, Muslims have called upon BSP Muslim members of Parliament, the legislative assembly and the legislative council to resign.
The renowned religious leader from Lucknow, Kalbe Jawad, has issued a stern warning to BSP legislators and MPs.
Other community leaders have expressed surprise at the decision of the BSP to join hands with the BJP, forgetting the deaths of innocent Muslims in Gujarat.
For the BSP Muslim legislators and MPs, what worries them most is the money spent on their elections. Because of this, none of them are willing to resign.
In fact, they question whether the Muslim community will compensate them for their losses if they resign.
Supporting the BSP legislators are Zaffaryab Geelani of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and Kunwar Salahuddin Khan of Deva Sharif Trust.
These two brushed aside the warning to the BSP legislators to quit the party.
Salahuddin said it was not fair to ask legislators to resign when they had spent millions of rupees getting elected. He said a better way was for Muslims to boycott them and refrain from voting for them in the next elections.
BSP legislators said that they are unhappy with their party’s decision to join hands with the BJP. They say they will be ruined if they quit the party and say that they raised election funds by taking loans, selling and mortgaging property. There is no other alternative but to stay put with the BSP, they say.
Reacting to Jawad, a lecturer in Agra said, "There is nothing wrong in what Jawad said. He is perfectly right. There is no other choice left for the legislators, except to resign, if they are true Muslims.
If they do not do so, they will incur the wrath of the Muslim community." Commenting on Zaffaryab Geelani and Salahuddin Khan's support to the BSP legistors, a civil engineer said, "These people have no credibility and mass following.
These shameless creatures are no better than the BSP legislators. They can do anything to fulfill their self interests that too at the cost of the community."
