Limited to the realm of religion so far, India’s largest Muslim outfit, the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, has decided to chart out a new course by launching a political party. However, as forming a party is a lengthy process, its strategy for the upcoming Assembly and Lok Sabha elections is to back non-Congress secular parties where the Congress has little or no presence.

“We have decided to launch a party, but the details have not been worked out yet. One thing is clear — the party will take up issues of the Muslim community and other backward and weaker sections,” Jamaat-e-Islami Hind president Syed Jalaluddin Umari told The Indian Express. Jamaat leaders added Muslims are in a majority in at least eight Lok Sabha seats, while they are a deciding factor in around 80 constituencies.

Umari said his advice to Muslims for the coming elections is to vote for the Congress where it is engaged in a direct fight with the BJP and to choose other secular parties where Congress is weak. “It could be the BSP, SP or the Left parties,” he said.

“I don’t think the plans to float a Muslim party can materialise before the coming Lok Sabha elections.”

He said while the BJP is implicitly anti-Muslim, the Congress has also failed to address the concerns of the community adequately. According to Umari, other parties have also paid only lip service to the community, using it as a vote bank. “It’s time to change,” he added.

The way the rise of Mayawati empowered Dalits and the Mulayam Singh Yadav rule in Uttar Pradesh proved to be beneficial for the Yadavs, “a Muslim party is needed to effectively raise the issues faced by the community,” said Umari, although he insisted that the party would not be “communal” as it would address “the concerns of Dalits and other marginalised sections of society”.

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