Lucknow, Aug. 14: Nine small minority outfits have decided to jointly contest the state elections in Uttar Pradesh next year in a bid to unite Muslim voters and pre-empt what they called attempts by the bigger parties to "misuse the community".
The decision came at a meeting here that leaders of these smaller parties held before they announced the formation of the Ittehad Front.
Mohammad Ayub, president of the Peace Party of India, said the decision to form the front was taken to frustrate the game plan of the big parties "that use the community as a mere vote bank".
"It is a general trend in Uttar Pradesh that a major chunk of the minority voters supports the Samajwadi Party or the BSP in alternate Assembly elections. We want to break this cartel and motivate the community to stay united under the banner of our front so that we are politically strong enough," Ayub, a successful surgeon in east Uttar Pradesh, told The Telegraph.
Ayub's party had polled 2.35 per cent of the votes cast in the last elections in 2012 and won four seats.
The others that joined the front are the Rashtriya Ulema Council (RUC), Ittehad-e-Millat Council (IEMC), Parcham Party of India, Muslim Majlis, Indian Muslim League, National League, Social Democratic Party of India and the Awami Vikas Party.
RUC president Maulana Amir Rashadi Madni explained why a front was needed for the community. "We had started a battle against Delhi's Batla House encounter of 2008 in which two innocent youths of Azamgarh were gunned down by the crime branch. But no political party supported our demand for a judicial probe. Obviously, we believe that we need a front for Muslims," Madni said.
"Our target is to fight against the SP and the BSP. Mulayam Singh Yadav, SP president, blackmails the community emotionally by reminding them that he, as chief minister, had ordered police to open fire on Vishwa Hindu Parishad workers in Ayodhya in 1990. And the maximum (number of) innocent Muslim youths were arrested in Uttar Pradesh when Mayawati, BSP president, was chief minister from 2007 to 2012. This is why we want to alert the Muslims against both."
The RUC had contested 100 seats in east Uttar Pradesh in the 2012 elections and polled six lakh votes. It didn't win any seat.
The west Uttar Pradesh-based IEMC had totalled 1.9 lakh votes and won one seat.
Political observers said these parties may not win many seats but could play a key role in defeating a candidate of either the Samajwadi Party or the BSP, the two major claimants to the 18 per cent Muslim votes in the state.
This is not the first time that such a front has come up just before an election in the heartland state. A Progressive Democratic Front had been formed before the 2007 Assembly elections but its president, Maulana Kalbe Jawad, had resigned after a closed door meeting with Mulayam a few weeks before the elections.
Minority-led parties had again tried to consolidate the community's vote before the 2009 parliamentary elections and had formed the United Muslim Front for effective poll management in over 25 minority-dominated constituencies. But the front - the RUC and the Muslim Majlis were part of it - developed cracks before the elections.
