Tamilnadu 2021 Assembly Polls Muslim / Christian candidates Too Numerous?

On 24^th March evening, Election Commission released the final list of candidates contesting in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly elections scheduled to be held on April 6^th, 2021.

When going through the list of contestants, we can easily find one distinct feature. Yes, this time almost all the political parties have given a greater number of seats to members belonging to minority communities in general and among them Muslims in particular.

According to 2011 census, the population in Tamilnadu consists of 6.12% Christians and 5.86% Muslims.

Following table says 42 Muslim candidates are in the Fray. Add to this the candidates from the Christian community (A difficult task; read the last para). That may exceed 60, double the number 30 (being 6+5=11 % of the House strength of 243.

Thus, more Muslims are contesting compared to earlier elections and from seats hitherto not contested. Also, they have seen to it that, in many seats Muslims are not engaged in straight fights. All these are increasing the probability of a greater number of Muslims becoming first time MLAs. As we know, Muslim MLAs or MPs speak in the same voice irrespective of their party affiliation. Just to recapitulate, number of Muslim MLAs in the outgoing assembly was 5 only.

In Tamil Nadu, BJP has been demonized and all the parties claim that they only can take on BJP and protect the Minorities. This vulnerability of political parties has been clearly exploited by Muslim parties. One wonders if money power also could have influenced the political parties’ decisions in the bonanza of allotting more seats.  Particularly, this appears more plausible in case of MNM and AMMK.

We will look into MNM and AMMK in more details. Makkal Neethi Maiyam (MNM) alliance headed by celluloid hero Kamal Haasan and Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhakam headed by TTV Dinakaran have been more liberal in gifting seats to Muslims. As both these parties are first time entrants in Assembly elections, they probably wanted to project themselves as more ‘secular ‘than the established players that is both the Kazhakams.

One important aspect to be noted with regard to MNM and AMMK. MNM is in alliance with SDPI (a mask for PFI) which has a dubious record of inciting communal riots across many states of our country, including the latest one in Bengaluru just 6 months ago. Similarly, AMMK has provided platform for AIMIM of Owaisi, who along with his brother spits fire on the Hindu community every time he opens his mouth to speak. In their competitive style of displaying secularism, all the parties have willy nilly fallen prey to the designs of Muslim parties. By allotting seats and that too in many cases under their own party symbols, they have given chance of more Muslim candidates entering the TN Assembly. Note the trend of traditional players like Indian Union Muslim League fading out and that space being occupied by rabid elements.

Incidentally, one need to remember that greater care has to be exercised with regard to Christian contestants. Unlike Muslim candidates, layman may not be able to know from their names as many of them are Crypto Christians sporting Hindu names and hiding their names at the time of Baptism. Only a vigilant Hindu society can thwart this greed to grab disproportionately higher share in the political cake.