The Congress(I) and the Nationalist Congress Party have already begun moves to woo Muslims in the State. The community has about 12 per cent votes spread across Maharashtra, and their votes can make all the difference between a win or a loss for any party. The Congress(I) has gone into the explanation mode, seeking to repair a failed, broken relationship with the minority community on the "Babari issue". The Muslims had voted for it in 1998, but now want answers because an alternative viable option in Sharad Pawar is at hand. The NCP, on the other hand, is working on a strategy to woo the community by focussing on the socio-economic and political factors. Pawar is hosting a Muslim conference in Aurangabad on Sunday because Marathwada has a very large presence of Muslims, apart from the Mumbai and Konkan areas. There is a bid to downplay the role of the 'mullahs' and the emphasis is on meeting people directly or through intellectuals, businessman or professionals who have influence on the community.
The BJP-Shiv Sena combine, however, is satisfied that it has not hurt the sentiments of the community ....There are no overt or covert moves by the combine to woo them and it is, in fact, indifferent to that constituency.
The Congress(I) is yet to convince Muslims that it holds their interests close to its heart, mainly because on the issue of the party's role in the Ayodhya developments, the buck is still being passed on. S.B. Chavan, the then Home Minister, has blamed the then Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, for not dismissing the (Kalyan Singh)Government before December 6, 1992, despite "my two Cabinet notes" and "it is for him to say why he did no. act". It is the "I-am-clean" refrain all over again.
A.R. Antulay ... has taken another route saying that Pawar as a Cabinet Minister at that time did nothing to persuade Rao to act ... But he does not explain why Chavan failed. Nor, why, as a senior Muslim leader, he himself did not reach out to Rao.
Even as the amused Muslim community watches the dramatics, Arjun Singh, who heads the party's minorities department, wanted to know in Mumbai as to what went wrong in the relationship with Pawar. So much so, that members of the community are asking why Arjun Singh waited so long to question Pawar's secular credentials ... The community wants Pawar to pledge that Muslims wrongly held under TADA in connection with March 1993 bomb blasts would be reteased and that the Srikrishna Commission's findings would be acted upon ... The community appears interested in the platform Pawar is developing (though) he has already spoken of increasing their representation in elected bodies including Lok Sabha ... (Source: Mahesh Vijapurkar in The Hindu, 9 July, 1999)
