Congress leader Ali Anwar Ansari, a former Rajya Sabha MP and head of the All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (AIPMM), said Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi’s social justice politics has no meaning if it does not include Pasmanda Muslims.
Ansari, who joined the Congress just before the Bihar Assembly elections, said secular parties must work for backward Muslims instead of taking their votes for granted.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Ali Anwar Ansari said, “Rahul Gandhi talked of social justice with EBCs (Extremely Backward Classes), OBCs (Other Backward Classes), Dalits and Muslims at its fulcrum. We are surely disappointed with the Bihar Assembly results, but five states, including West Bengal, are going to the polls this year.”
The Bihar elections held in November last year saw the NDA get a landslide victory over the Mahagathbandhan, which included the Congress.
Ansari said the Congress had to think beyond Hindu-Muslim polarisation and communalism. “The Pasmanda movement can neutralise Muslim communalism,” said the AIPMM chief, who had served as a two-time Rajya Sabha MP from a JD(U) ticket before moving to the Congress.
Ansari said, “Rahul Gandhi did mention (Pasmanda Muslims) once or twice, but there was no forward movement. Either there should be a devoted Pasmanda cell in the party, or an EBC-Pasmanda cell could also work. After all, the Sachchar Committee and the Rangnath Mishra Commission have also endorsed the very idea of Pasmanda. Just as there is EBC in Hindus, there is Pasmanda among Muslims. The Bihar caste-based survey has also identified 10.5% Muslim EBCs or Pasmanda.”
Ansari now plans a series of meetings under the AIPMM.
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Over a dozen EBC, Dalit and Muslim leaders, including Ansari, had joined the Congress during Rahul Gandhi’s Samvidhan Bachao (Save the Constitution) meetings in Patna before the Bihar elections.
