[Reader-list] It’s raining sops & grants for Muslims in UP

[Pawan Durani]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Courting-support-Its-raining-sops-grants-for-Muslims-in-UP/articleshow/5582103.cms

LUCKNOW: Giant hoardings of politicians cutting across party lines
stare down at passers-by at Hafizpur main crossing looking a tad
incongruous. This kasbah, a mere 20 km off Azamgarh, is inhabited
mostly by landless Muslim farmers, and everybody and his brother here
is a bit baffled by the off season wooing by political heavyweights.

Within days of UP Congress incharge Digvijay Singh’s visit to
Azamgarh, BSP supremo and UP CM Mayawati on Tuesday reactivated the
Muslim ‘bhaichara samitis’ under Cabinet minister Naseemuddin
Siddiqui. She has also made major allocations to minorities in the
state budget. The sops include Rs 212 crore for special scholarships
to Muslims; doubling of grant to Urdu Academy; construction of Haj
houses in Ghaziabad and Lucknow, setting up of a Urdu-Persian
university in Lucknow.

The alarm in Samajwadi Party is even more palpable where its boss
Mulayam Singh Yadav dropped ‘Babri culprit’ Kalyan Singh and his
friend Amar Singh. The humiliating defeat of his daughter-in-law
Dimple Yadav at Ferozabad forced him to dump the Yadav-backward-Thakur
formula he had worked out with Kalyan, Amar and Co. Now he is back to
being ‘‘Maulana Mulayam’’ with his skull cap and red-and-white check
‘keffiah’ (a sort of towel) in place.

As for Congress, Digvijay Singh’s Sanjarpur sojourn, during which he
called for a fast track court to try the Batla House encounter
accused, it was just the beginning. There’s increasing talk of AICC
general secretary Rahul Gandhi visiting Shibli National College in
Azamgarh. The party is focusing on east UP — its Achilles’ heel.