A united minority cast anti-BJP vote in fourth Phase

By Kulsum Mustafa Lucknow on Wednesday scored its maiden first division in Independent India. The administrative hub of Uttar Pradesh crossed all past records as it attained its highest polling percentage of 60.5 in the fourth phase of the state assembly elections. The closest that the city had come to in the past was a good second division in 2017 when it had scored 58.45 percent. Voting in 59 constituencies spread across nine districts of Uttar Pradesh included the nine seats from Lucknow, the city which has a  mixed population and rates high on the global cultural index.
While the credit for reaching this high score is largely due to the desperation of the masses which appears fed up with the BJP government’s anti-people policies, the big role of the minority cannot be overlooked in raising the polling percentage bar so high. Ignored, humiliated, and literally pushed to the wall, the minority voted in sheer desperation for a change. casting its anti- BJP mandate. Long queues of burqa-clad women and men with skull caps outside polling stations were presented visuals that spoke clearly of how desperately the minority wanted the saffron-driven machinery to leave the city.  But it is not just the rise in polling percentage that needs to be illustrated here there is also a bigger change that needs dwelling upon. Apart from creating a record of numbers the other feather in Lucknow’s cap is the city, known to have a fragile social fabric wherein sectarian biases exist and erupt often in this election choose to vote in Unisom, sans any Shia Sunni tags. It was minority versus the BJP in totality with no scope of if and buts.
“The minority voted an mass, goaded with just an anti- BJP sentiment, not heeding to any calls from the imams or maulanas,” said Aman Abbas, editor of Urdu daily Sahafat.  Aman was referring to the last-minute pre-poll election video clip released by the Shia cleric, Kalbe Jawwed,  giving clear hints that the community shun Samajwadi Party and instead vote for the BJP.