KOLKATA: With smaller opposition parties joining hands to form ‘anti-TMC’, ‘anti-BJP’ groups to corner their Muslim vote share in the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections, there is likely to be a multi-faceted split among the minority community voters who are estimated to be at least 30% of the state’s 91.27 million (as per 2011 Census).
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. (PTI)The ruling Trinamool Congress has enjoyed a majority of the Muslim vote in the state since Mamata Banerjee-led party ousted the Left Front in 2011.
The prospect of a new political alignment emerged on Thursday when the Congress, which once controlled the Muslim-majority districts of Murshidabad and Malda, decided to ditch its old ally, the CPI(M), and contest on its own. The TMC has repeatedly rejected the pre-election truck with the grand old party of West Bengal.
The development comes weeks after Murshidabad’s TMC Bharatpur MLA Humayun Kabir was suspended for laying the foundation stone of a mosque modeled after Ayodhya’s Babri Masjid. Moving on, Kabir formed his own party, the Janata Unyaan Party, and negotiated with CPI(M) state secretary Mohammad Saleem to form an alliance against the TMC and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“In Murshidabad and Malda, our alliance with the Congress increased the opposition’s vote share in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. We even defeated the TMC in the Sagardighi assembly by-election in Murshidabad in 2023. The TMC later convinced our winner to switch camps,” Salim told HT on Friday.
More Read
As allies in the 2021 state elections, the Congress and the Left failed to win any seats in the 294-member assembly but Salim said the alliance symbolized a secular alternative. The only non-BJP opposition member in the assembly, Indian Secular Front (ISF) leader Nausad Siddiqui, announced last week that he was again open to an alliance with the Left and “like-minded” forces.
“TMC wants the 70:30 binary to continue while we want all secular forces to come together. We will try our best to ensure there is no division in the vote. It seems the Congress doesn’t want that but its workers at the grassroots are not anti-Left. Our workers are negotiating with them,” Salim added.
Although Salim’s meeting with Humayun Kabir did not go down well with Left Front partners like the Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the issue led to a heated exchange at the front’s meeting on Thursday, Salim said talks could be held with anyone in the interest of a larger alliance.
More Read
“We are talking to all parties, groups and individuals to maximize anti-TMC, anti-BJP votes. Some may work, some may not. We have taken this stand in our party congress in 2025,” Salim said.
Kabir claimed that he did not consider any party, including Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Waisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM), untouchable in the battle ahead.
“I have been in Congress for 30 years. Its decision is nothing short of surrender to TMC. Congress will not win a single seat. Those who want to keep BJP out of power and counter TMC should come under one umbrella. No party including AIMIM is untouchable. A big front is coming,” Kabir told HT.
In 2020, when the AIMIM won five seats in the Bihar Assembly elections and was accused by the Congress of splitting the Muslim vote to help the BJP, YC announced that his party would contest the 2021 Bengal elections. The plan failed and 21 AIMIM members joined the TMC in November 2020.
“We have approached several groups this year to come up with a strategy,” said Imran Solanki, president of AIMIM’s Bengal unit.
Some Muslim clerics told HT that they have witnessed changes among members of the minority community.
More Read
West Bengal Imams Association chairman Md Yahya said: “The corruption of TMC’s grassroots leaders seems to have disillusioned Muslims who earlier had a soft corner for the ruling party. We have received information that AIMIM is entering the picture.”
At the time of the 2011 census, Muslim population was predominantly high in Murshidabad (66.28%), Malda (51.27%) and North Dinajpur (49.92%) districts. In South 24 Parganas adjacent to Kolkata it was 35.57%, while in Birbhum the figure was 37.06%.
According to surveys by the BJP and the Trinamool, the community can influence poll results in at least 120 of Bengal’s 294 constituencies. In 2021 BJP won 77 seats and TMC captured 213.
