KOZHIKODE: The campaign for the just-concluded assembly election has created ripples among the Muslim community in Kerala, the waves of which will remain in society for some more time.
The most visible one is that workers of the Indian Union Muslim League and the Jama’at-e-Islami became closer during the campaign. The League decided to have a truck with the Jama’at, disregarding the opposition raised by some Muslim organisations. The informal tie-up grew into a full-blown alliance in some constituencies, where the activists of both organisations worked in tandem for the victory o f the UDF candidates.
The Welfare Party of India, the political wing of the Jama’at, organised election conventions for the UDF and the candidates were invited for the programme. But the candidates didn’t turn up for the programme as it happened in Perambra, but that didn’t pour cold water on the IUML-Jama’at relationship.
At the same time, the relationship between the Jama’at and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) touched an all-time low during the campaign. The SDPI’s decision to field a candidate in Manjeshwar and the discrete support the party extended to the LDF vitiated the situation.
The social media handles of the Jama’at even charged that SDPI had struck a deal with the BJP government at the Centre to get the latter’s leaders released from jails, which invited strong reaction from the SDPI cadres.
At a different level, IUML has a strong suspicion that a group in the Samastha Kerala Jam-Iyyathul Ulama, which has been antagonistic to the party for a long time, has played some mischief in Vengara constituency, where the party state secretary K M Shaji was a candidate. Shaji had spoken against one central mushawara member of Samastha, which infuriated the group.
A few days before the election, the Sunni Students Federation (SSF), the student wing of the Kanthapuram Sunnis, issued a statement cautioning the supporters against the machinations of a leader of the organisation in Karnataka. The statement from the SSF general secretary warned against the attempts from political parties to create division in the organisation.
It alleged that the person tried to convene meetings in places like Alappuzha, presumably at the behest of a political party. It is believed that the reference is to the attempts made by Congress to woo a section of the Kanthapuram group.