The December 3 protest at mosques organised by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in opposition to the LDF authorities has put the highlight on the Opposition get together because it makes an attempt to retain its maintain over the neighborhood.
The IUML, a chief constituent of the Congress-led United Democratic Entrance (UDF) in Kerala, had rallied a number of Muslim non secular and social teams to ship talks throughout Friday prayers at mosques in opposition to the CPI(M)-led authorities’s choice handy over Wakf Board recruitment to the Kerala Public Service Fee. However a day earlier than the scheduled protest, the Samastha Kerala Jemiyyathul Ulema, popularly generally known as Samastha, a robust physique of pro-IUML Muslim students in Kerala, pulled out, with the outfit’s president, Syed Muhammad Jifri Muthukoya Thangal, saying in Kozhikode that they don’t need mosques to be was protest venues.
Whereas the protest went forward with solely mosques related to the Mujahideen motion and Jamaat-e-Islami collaborating, the scaled-down occasion was a significant lack of face for the IUML, exposing it to the allegation that it had joined fingers with right-wing and fringe Muslim outfits.
The truth that the IUML selected to carry the protest at mosques is a brand new language for Kerala’s largest Muslim get together that has largely stayed within the left-of-centre area of Kerala politics and been a part of the UDF coalition for the final 40 years.
The IUML has been credited with politically empowering Muslims within the state and has all the time taken the lead in championing the reason for the neighborhood. The IUML sensed one such alternative within the Wakf Board recruitment problem, whereas additionally with the ability to tackle the LDF. However the really fizzling out of the mosque protest has challenged IUML’s means to tackle the management mantle on points affecting Muslims in Kerala and raised questions on the get together’s maintain over its vote base.
The get together suffered a jolt within the 2021 Meeting elections, profitable solely 15 of the 27 seats it contested, down from 18 seats of the 23 seats it contested in 2016.
The IUML would even be anxious about how the CPI(M) is quick gaining floor in the neighborhood. In the course of the anti-CAA protest, regardless of reservations expressed by the IUML, Samastha leaders had shared the dais with the CPI(M), together with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Samsatha had additionally hailed the Vijayan authorities for passing a decision within the state Meeting in opposition to CAA, the primary legislature to take action.
What must also fear the IUML is the CPI(M)’s aggressive reaching-out to the neighborhood. The CPI(M) has been giving management roles within the get together and its feeder outfits to neighborhood members, amongst them P A Mohammed Riyas, the CM’s son-in-law who’s a distinguished member of the Vijayan Cupboard and an rising Muslim face of the get together. In addition to, A A Rahim, a distinguished Muslim face within the CPI(M) youth wing DYFI, was not too long ago made the outfit’s nationwide president. Additionally, whereas the IUML hasn’t managed to ship Muslim girls to the Meeting to this point, CPI(M)’s Kanathil Jameela received from Koilandy constituency earlier this yr.
The Samastha’s backing out from the protest is one other signal of the CPI(M)’s rising maintain over the neighborhood. What made the Samastha abandon the protest was an assurance from the Chief Minister that the federal government would contemplate the issues raised by the Muslim neighborhood on the Wakf Board recruitment.
Samastha’s choice in opposition to the IUML protest has saved Vijayan — who has been wooing the neighborhood and projecting it as a bulwark in opposition to the Sangh Parivar — from a politically embarrassing state of affairs.
The Samastha is a physique of clerics of the EK faction of the Samastha Kerala Jemiyyathul Ulama that break up in 1989 and is understood to be pro-IUML. The opposite Sunni faction, A P Sunni, led by conservative cleric Kanthapuram A P Aboobacker Musliyar, is already recognized as pro-Left.
