Azamgarh: The BJP “bhooth” (demon) that spooked the Muslim psyche in Uttar Pradesh ever since the Babri demolition seems to have been finally laid to rest in these elections.

Muslims no longer propose to vote strategically to defeat the BJP, as they have done in every election since 1992. Joining the swelling anti-Mayawati constituency, they are rooting for candidates best placed to defeat the BSP — even if that means voting for the BJP in some seats.

A sound Muslim BSP candidate can still get by, on the strength of personal image and conduct. The same holds true for the Congress. The Peace Party, purportedly espousing the interests of the backward caste and Dalit Muslims, is attracting votes in pockets of east Uttar Pradesh. But the Samajwadi Party is back as favourite.

“We remember the Mulayam Singh Yadav regime with nostalgia,” said Umer Nadvi, a senior research fellow in Azamgarh’s Darul Musannefin Shibli Academy. “The power situation was not too bad. At least we didn’t need to install inverters. Mulayam was the first leader since Independence to link Urdu with employment, he appointed 1,500 Urdu teachers and translators. Mayawati has not created a single job. Immortalise yourself through solid work so that you can also insulate yourself against corruption. Then even if you make money, people won’t mind.”

In Varanasi, some 70km away, the bunkars (weavers) of the Benarasi silk saris recalled that Mulayam had ended electricity pilferage — “forced” by the rate of Rs 400 a day to operate power looms — by installing meters and then standardising the rate of Rs 65 a month for a maximum of four looms.

But more than nostalgia for an earlier regime, what weighed in with Muslims was that in an Assembly election it makes “more sense” to vote for a regional party. “We are clear that come 2014, we will root for the Congress because it’s the best national choice,” said Varanasi weaver Mohammad Shoaib. The community also has some grouses against the Congress. Maulana Khalid Rasheed, the Naib Imam of Lucknow’s Idghah mosque, complained that the Centre had not amended the Right to Education Act to exempt “madarsas” and minority institutions.

A couple of weeks ago, the Muslim Personal Law Board met in Farukkhabad from where Salman Khurshid’s wife Louise is the candidate. Without taking names, the gathering ticked off the UPA for doing “nothing” on the education law and its plan to include all charitable trusts in the Direct Taxes Code bill, a member said.

The Centre’s alleged failure to set up a judicial probe into the Batla House “encounter” remains a sore point, especially in Azamgarh from where several youths were picked up for questioning. “The least the Centre could have done was to institute a CBI inquiry. To say that it would demoralise the police is rubbish,” argued Maulana Rashid.

Fakhrul Islam, a retired professor from Azamgarh’s Shibli Academy, said when several youths demanded an explanation from Rahul Gandhi, who was here recently, “all he said was ‘learn to move on’.” “Try giving this line to the families of the boys who are still in custody and you know why the Congress is not quite the favourite of Muslims out here,” Islam said.

Lucknow-based lawyer and minority rights activist Zafaryab Jilani said: “The Congress’s problem is that it carries a seventies’ mindset. It thinks it can befool Muslims with sops. I told Digvijayaji (Digvijaya Singh), ‘you are a good man but you don’t live in 2012’. Just abusing the RSS and BJP doesn’t persuade our voters any longer. Even if (Narendra) Modi campaigns here, we will be indifferent.”

-The Telegraph, Calcutta