Vikaas in their wards, triple talaq: What BJP’s Muslim picks for Delhi civic polls are fighting for

Around 6 pm on Monday, a group of Bharatiya Janata Party workers bustled about on a congested lane in the Old Mustafabad colony of North Delhi. The narrow lane, lined with saffron flags and banners of all sizes, had to be cleared to make way for a rally of the party’s candidate for the upcoming municipal polls, Sabra Malik, scheduled to start in an hour.

In one corner of the lane, a group of around 10 men – all residents of the area – were huddled together, sipping tea and discussing Malik’s chances of winning from the Mustafabad ward . “Though the incumbent councillor from the ward is a Congress candidate, the strongest contender is the candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party,” said septuagenarian Mohammad Haroon as he served countless cups of tea to a stream of campaigners and guests.

Sabra Malik, 42, a homemaker who assists her husband who works as a scrap dealer, is one of the five Muslim candidates that the saffron party has fielded for the elections to The Municipal Corporation of Delhi on April 23.

Given that the BJP had not given tickets to a single candidate from the community in the recently concluded Uttar Pradesh polls – a state with a significant Muslim population – where they emerged victorious, the party’s Delhi picks have generated much interest.

The party had, in fact, initially fielded six Muslim candidates for the upcoming MCD polls – one higher than the number they had given tickets to in 2012 – but the nomination of one of their appointees was rejected because of errors in his form. Of the five approved candidates, two are women, contesting from wards reserved for female candidates. The BJP has been in power in the MCD for 10 years now. In 2012, the MCD was trifurcated – a separate municipal corporation was created each for North Delhi, South Delhi and East Delhi – and the BJP currently holds power in all three bodies.

Sabra Malik’s tryst with the saffron party began when she married Yusuf Malik, a scrap dealer and a BJP member, around seven years ago.

“I had joined the BJP in 2007 because I felt the Congress was exploiting Muslims in the country,” said Yusuf Malik. “When we got married, Sabra also joined the party and started conducting meetings with the women residents of the ward. A lot of women residents of the area have joined the party in the past few years.”

While Yusuf Malik is a native of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, Sabra Malik is from a village in Bulandshahr in the central state. Both have been in Delhi for about 20 years now.

The Maliks had approached the BJP for a ticket before the 2012 municipal polls too. “Sabra wanted to contest, but she did not get a ticket,” Yusuf Malik said. The party fielded a Hindu candidate from Mustafabad instead, who was badly defeated.

Yusuf Malik said around 80% of the ward’s population of about 60,000 people is Muslim. In the past five years, the problems plaguing the locality have remained constant – not enough sewage treatment facilities, garbage dumping, poor water supply and lack of medical dispensaries. These will remain Sabra Malik’s priorities if she wins, her husband said.

All in the family

The BJP’s second Muslim woman candidate, 52-year-old Rubina Begum, is also contesting the municipal elections for the first time, from Delhi’s Quresh Nagar, but is not an outsider to politics.

Begum’s family has a long history with the BJP and she was nominated despite the party’s pre-poll declaration that they would not field any sitting councillor or their relatives. Begum’s father, Mohammad Ismail, has been a supporter since the days of the Janata Party, from which the BJP emerged in 1980. He was also twice elected a metropolitan council member (equivalent to the present-day legislator), which was the highest elected body in Delhi till 1991, when the erstwhile Union Territory was declared a National Capital Territory with its own legislative Assembly.

In 2007, Ismail’s son and Begum’s brother, Mohammad Imran won the the municipal elections from Quresh Nagar on a BJP ticket. When the MCD was trifurcated, the boundaries and numbers some of the wards changed and Quresh Nagar came to be reserved for women. In 2012, Begum’s mother Hoor Bano contested and won the civic elections from here and is campaigning for her daughter this time.

Many of Begum’s relatives are also in the BJP. Begum is married to a businessman and the couple have three children. The entire family resides in Quresh Nagar, which has about 60,000 residents, around 60% of whom are Muslims. Both Congress and AAP too have fielded candidates from the community in this ward.

‘Inspired by Vajpayee’

Fahimuddin Saifi, 30, who is contesting on a BJP ticket from the Delhi Gate ward located in the heart of the national capital, clearly remembers the day he joined the BJP. “July 16, 2011, was the date. It was an important day as nearly 500 residents of the locality, most of them my friends and relatives, had joined the party together,” he said said.

Saifi said it was BJP veteran Atal Bihari Vajpayee who inspired him to join the party (though he has never met the former prime minister). “BJP has a discipline and that is something that always attracted me towards the party,” said Saifi, who owns a steel fabrication workshop in Noida and has been living in the National Capital Region for 25 years now.

Troubled by the various problems in his ward – such as the absence of a community centre, drainage problems and lack of dispensaries – Saifi decided to join politics. He has worked as an office bearer in the minority cell of Delhi BJP between 2011 and 2014 and was a secretary of the Delhi youth wing from 2013-’16. This is the first time he is contesting the municipal elections.

The Delhi Gate ward has a population of 46,000 and around 60% of which is Muslim, he said.

Counting on vikaas

Fourty-three-year-old Sartaj Ahmed is the BJP’s candidate from the Chauhan Banger ward in North East Delhi. Born and brought up in the city, Ahmed, who owns a metal box manufacturing unit, joined the saffron party in 2006. “I had friends who had joined the party in 2003,” he said. “Though I have never contested election myself, I have campaigned for a friend who had contested in the 2007 municipal polls.”

When asked if he found it challenging to convince Muslims to vote for the BJP, known for its Hindutva ideology, he said, “Muslims do not hesitate to join Bharatiya Janata Party under Narendra Modi’s leadership. At the end of the day, who does not want vikaas [development]?”

Ahmed lives with his wife and four children. He said the Chauhan Banger ward, whose incumbent councillor was an Independent candidate who later joined the Aam Aadmi Party, has a population of around 22,000, almost all Muslims, he said.

Triple talaq plank

Unlike the other candidates who are wooing voters by taking up local concerns in their campaigns, the BJP’s fifth Muslim pick from the city, 37-year-old Kunwar Rafi, is focusing on a broader plank – his party’s stance on ending triple talaq “People are very happy with BJP’s stand on the issue and want it abolished,” he said. “This will definitely help us in the municipal polls.”

Rafi, who runs a computer shop, has been associated with BJP for 10 years now.is contesting from Zakir Nagar ward in South East Delhi. Rafi lives in Zakir Nagar with his family – his parents, wife, six-year-old son, four brothers and their wives and children.

Though he has spent most of his life in Delhi, he was born in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar, which witnessed communal riots in 2013, which killed more than 40 Muslims and 20 Hindus. When asked about the alleged roles of BJP legislators and party members in inciting tension before and during the riots, he said, “A mob has no face and when a riot happens, it is difficult to ascertain who did what. This is what political parties take advantage of and accuse each other of wrongdoings.”