Minority leaders look forward to meeting with Rahul Gandhi

Former Delhi Minister and four-time MLA Haroon Yusuf is a worried man. “ The country is passing through a dire phase and this is the time when role of the Congress party is also crucial.

“Congress was always been seen as a party which stood up for the oppressed and the poor and therefore it should not shy away from addressing the concerns of its core constituency”. Looking forward to a meeting of minority leaders of Delhi with Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi scheduled for Monday, Yusuf said, “security is a major issue for Muslims and Dalits and Congress being the main national party in the Opposition, Muslims and Dalits are looking towards Congress with hope”.

There is a section in the Congress party which does not want the party to be identified with Muslim issues. This section argues that the right-wing has successfully painted Congress as pro-Muslim, thus driving away large sections of the majority community from the party.

Mateen Ahmed, former chairman of Delhi Waqf Board, is not happy with the way the UPA government handled the Muslim issues. “There was lot of noise about lot of things being done for Muslims but on the ground, it showed little result as proper monitoring was missing”.

He categorically says “why do the leaders talk about doing things for Muslims or any other community? They should be saying and doing things for the weaker and oppressed sections of the society”.

Citing a statement made by former Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde that all arrested Muslims would be released, Mateen exclaims, “He should rather have said that all the arrested found innocent would be released.”

By singling out and using the ‘M’ word, unfairly and unnecessarily, he points out, Congress leaders have harmed both the community as well as the party.

Mateen went on to add, “A lot was said about 90 districts which were identified for the upliftment of minorities; but on the ground nothing was visible as there was no monitoring and mere announcements obviously do not work but actually alienate the people”.

He is confident that the Congress will get its core constituency of Dalits and minorities back. But the party needs to be seen standing with the poor, the oppressed,dalits and minorities of the country.

Muslim leaders NH spoke to seem to be acutely conscious of the dilemma that the Congress faces. Any overture made by the party towards Muslims would immediately be pounced upon as another example of ‘Muslim appeasement’ by the right-wing and the media. This realisation makes the party diffident, not sure if reaching out to the minority community and the Dalits would help or harm the party.

But they hope to have a frank exchange of views with the Congress vice president. The poor performance of the party in the Delhi assembly election in 2015 and the recently held MCD ( Municipal Corporation of Delhi) polls, is likely to come up at the meeting, they said.

Former MLAs and councilors belonging to Sikh, Muslim and Jain community are slated to meet Congress Vice President on Monday.