BJP IT cell forgets alliance with Muslim League in Nagpur

BJP’s IT cell on Friday found itself caught on the wrong foot when it tried to mock Rahul Gandhi’s statement on the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).

In response to a question at the National Press Club in Washington DC on how he would justify his party’s alliance in Kerala with the IUML, Rahul Gandhi said that the questioner had not checked his facts and that IUML was a ‘completely secular party’. 

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT cell chief tweeted moments later to mock Gandhi’s alleged lack of education, saying that the Congress leader was not even aware that the Muslim League had been instrumental in the Partition of India. He had clearly mixed up the two Muslim Leagues.

The IUML is different from Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s All India Muslim League, which is now known as the Pakistan Muslim League and has no presence in India.

The IUML retains a strong base in Kerala, from where it regularly elects at least one member of Parliament (currently, there are three: two from Kerala and one from Tamil Nadu).

It’s focus is certainly on the welfare of Muslims, but it is bitterly opposed to Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehad Muslimeen (AIMIM), which it considers too extreme. Rather, it has had no trouble supporting the BJP in the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC).

When the BJP, which has been in control of the NMC for the past several years, fell short of a few seats, it tied up with IUML to win the chair of the standing committee. Late prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee too had no problem in including an IUML MP in an Indian delegation to an United Nations council in Geneva.

The Muslim community in Nagpur is not unfriendly towards the BJP, largely due to the exertions of Union minister Nitin Gadkari, who has wooed them assiduously, helping them move out of the ghetto of Mominpura to other areas of town. The IUML has also been contesting civic polls in other parts of Maharashtra, including in Mumbai, where lately it has been overshadowed by the AIMIM.

Not just the BJP, but the Shiv Sena too has enlisted the support of the IUML in the BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation).

While Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray and the then-president of the IUML GM Banatwalla, an MP from Mumbai, threatened each other during the election campaign and made incendiary comments, they did come together in the BMC and supported each other on a quid pro quo basis.

The IUML supported the Sena’s bid for the chairperson’s seat, while the Sena agreed to support the IUML for a place in the standing committee.

Yet the BJP or its IT cell chief clearly do not want to be reminded of their association with the IUML.