Malappuram bypoll: Fringe Muslim parties stay off

MALAPPURAM: The fringe Muslim groups which constituted political parties to take on the Indian Union Muslim League have decided not to contest in the Malappuram Lok Sabha by-election. The decision of the Popular Front’s political outfit Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and Jamat-e-Islami’s Welfare Party to stay away from the fray came after they failed to constitute a temporary alliance with similar parties. They were in talks with Abdunasar Madani’s PDP, BSP and RMP. The move was to pit a commonly-acceptable independent candidate in Malappuram where both the SDPI and Welfare Party contested separately in the 2014 general elections.

However, it did not materialize as all the identified persons said no to the offer. Both parties also have not declared their political stand. “Unofficial discussions were held among the parties during the past week. But the effort was not successful due to several reasons. The disinterest and reluctance of the potential candidates we approached was one of them. There is not much time for electioneering too,” said P.K Usman, state secretary of SDPI. The state committee meeting on Saturday would decide the party’s political stand in the bypoll and it would be announced publicly, he said. The Welfare Party has also said that it would not put up a party candidate in the poll.

“There is no such peculiar political situation in Malappuram which prompts us to contest. Even the LDF has not made much effort for the fight this time. So we are not taking a risk,” said Hameed Vaniyambalam, the state president of the Party. The vote share of the SDPI and Welfare Party in the 2014 LS election in the constituency had witnessed a steep fall in the 2016 assembly election. SDPI had got 47,853 votes in 2014. But the party could garner only 16,170 votes from all the seven assembly constituencies in the Malappuram LS segment. Similarly the Welfare party’s vote share of 29,216 in 2014 declined to 15,777 votes in 2016.