CPI(M) Plans to Court Muslims

Author: 
S.N.M. Abdi, Arab News
Publication Date: 
Sat, 2005-01-15 03:00

CALCUTTA, 15 January 2005 — The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has zeroed in on two predominantly Muslim districts of West Bengal — Malda and Murshidabad — which have rebuffed left candidates in election after election.

Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya announced yesterday that “a new development package is being finalized for the twin districts.”

Muslims account for 26 percent of voters in West Bengal where provincial legislative assembly elections are due in 2006. The communists are on a rectification drive ahead of the crucial elections to consolidate its position by plugging loopholes and wooing disenchanted voters.

The task of winning over Muslims, particularly in Malda and Murshidabad, has been assigned to none other than Buddhadev. The chief minister has promised to set up small factories after investment consultants assess the region’s industrial potential. Besides consultants, Bansagopal Chowdhury and Maidal Hassan, cottage and small scale industries minister and West Bengal Small Scale Industries Development Corporation chairman respectively, are also conducting surveys to identify industries suitable for the area. “We are considering proposals to set up food and fruit processing units in Farakka and Behrampore. The Jindal group wants to set up a steel factory in Murshidabad. Russian and Indonesian companies are also interested in manufacturing trucks and bicycles in the region,” said Buddhadev.

But Atish Sinha, Congress party legislator from Murshidabad, said that the chief minister was making tall promises to grab votes but would inevitably renege on the promises after the elections.

In the April-May 2004 parliamentary elections, Congress bagged all the four Lok Sabha seats in the two districts. The CPI(M) pulled out all stops to defeat Congress heavyweight A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury but failed.

In the 2001 assembly elections, Congress won eight out of 19 seats in Murshidabad and five of the 11 seats in Malda. And in both districts, the Zilla Parishads are controlled by Congress much to the CPI(M)’s political discomfiture.

Muslim community leaders are amused by the CPI(M)’s desperate attempts to win over disillusioned Muslims who are increasingly turning to Congress not only in Malda and Murshidabad but elsewhere too in sheer frustration. They say that the Left Front never tires of projecting itself as a secular, pro-minorities regime but official statistics show that Muslims have been systematically denied government jobs under left rule.

Although Muslims account for 26 percent of the West Bengal electorate, less than five percent of government employees in West Bengal are Muslims.

According to the latest Labor Department figures, Muslims accounted for as little as 4.54 percent of recruitment since 1990 through employment exchanges in Calcutta and other parts of West Bengal. Muslims are denied even menial jobs which candidates who have passed grade eight are eligible for.

But upper caste Hindus comprising 35 percent of West Bengal’s population have cornered 62 percent of government jobs since 1990.

There has not been a single Muslim police commissioner or director-general of police since 1977. Muslims account for just four percent of Calcutta Police personnel, mostly constables.

There are only three Muslims among 720 teachers at Jadavpur University, the state’s second most important institution of higher education after Calcutta University.

The top government-run higher secondary institution, Hindu School, has only one Muslim teacher among 40.

Left Front’s Muslim leaders blame the poor representation of Muslims in government jobs to the community’s much-touted “educational backwardness”. But community leaders say that the Marxist government does not recruit Muslims even as peons.

“It’s a bizarre situation. The communists claim that there is no discrimination against religious minorities in West Bengal. But statistics show that the government is covertly pursuing the policy of denying government jobs to Muslims,” said a senior community leader.

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