Lone Congress Muslim woman candidate fought for girls’ right to wear hijab, faces BJP challenge
With barely 15 minutes remaining for the Election Commission (EC)-stipulated 10 pm deadline for a day’s campaign, Kaneez Fathima, the Congress MLA and candidate for the Gulbarga North constituency, arrives at Kalaburagi city’s Shaik Roza area — the final stop for her hectic electioneering Friday.
Fathima then makes a hurried speech highlighting the Congress’s pledges for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly polls. She urges locals to vote for her and not others who, she charges, merely claim to be the “protector” of the interest of the people of the constituency, 60 per cent of whom are Muslims.
“A win in Karnataka for the Congress will mark a beginning for change in the country,” says Fathima, 63, who was pulled away from her domestic role into the spotlight of public life a few months before the 2018 Assembly polls, when her husband Qamarul Islam, a minister and six-term local MLA, passed away.
Fathima is the lone Muslim woman candidate fielded by the Congress in this election. The JD(S)’s lone Muslim woman nominee Sabina Samad is in the fray from the Kapu seat in the Udupi region. The BJP has not fielded a Muslim candidate in any of the state’s total 224 seats.
A devout Muslim, Fathima, who wears a hijab in public, had led protests in Gulbarga over the ban on hijab in colleges imposed by the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government in 2022, which had led to Muslim girls being barred from government colleges for insisting on wearing hijab as well as for participating in anti-CAA protests in 2020.
“It is our right to wear hijab. In Independent India we have our freedoms. We do not question people on their clothes. Girls must not be prevented from going to colleges over this issue,” Fathima had said at the peak of the hijab row.
A politician in her own right now, Fathima is however facing a stiff challenge from the BJP’s Chandrakanth Patil, a Lingayat youth leader who had lost the 2018 election to her by just 5,940 votes, even as she has also nine Muslim rivals in the seat, including the JD(S)’s Nasir Hussain Ustad.
On March 23 this year, three days before the Karnataka polls were announced, the Congress lost its traditional hold over the Gulbarga City Council with the BJP winning the Mayor’s post despite the Congress having emerged as the single largest party in the 2021 civic polls.
In the 55-member Council, the Congress won 27 seats, BJP 23 and JD(S) four. With 32 votes (including votes of the MPs, MLAs and MLCs in Kalaburagi) required to clinch the mayoral position, the Congress was pipped by the BJP by a vote despite its alliance with the JD(S).
The local Congress unit blamed the absence of a JDS councillor on the voting day for the defeat, even as there were also suggestions that it was the absence of the Congress president and Rajya Sabha MP Mallikarjun Kharge that sealed the deal for the BJP. Kharge had been the Lok Sabha MP from Gulbarga during 2009-19. The Congress’s defeat saw the BJP gain control of the Kalaburagi civic body after 12 years.
During his campaign for the May 10 Assembly polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted the election of a BJP Mayor and Deputy Mayor in Kalaburagi, saying that his party’s win on Kharge’s home turf was a sign of things to come. “This, in a way, is a sign that Vijay Yatra (of BJP) has started in the state,” the PM said.
While canvassing door-to-door and in places like the local vegetable market, Fathima is telling voters that the Muslim votes should not end up divided. “Our disputes should not result in yielding benefits for others. My effort is to bring everyone together. Qamarul saheb took everyone together,” she tells those Muslims perceived to be opposed to her.
“There are several Muslim candidates in the fray but the real challenge is from the JD(S) candidate. The issue that everyone seems to have with Madam (Fathima) is that she is a Muslim woman contesting the polls. The campaign that is going around is that she is not capable of handling the constituency as a woman from the minority community,” says Abrar Sait, one of her associates. “When she entered politics she was inexperienced. The Congress leaders asked her to contest after Qamarul saheb died. She practises a decent brand of politics and does not stoop to calling people names. She is liked for this reason. The rivals know that if she is defeated then it would be difficult for her to make a comeback.”
An advocate Mohammed Qiwamuddin Junaidi, who fought the 2018 election from Gulbarga North as an Independent, says: “She (Fathima) has kept the tradition of Muslim-Hindu unity in the region that was started by Qamarul saheb. We give sherbet to Ram Bhakts during Rama Navami even as we observe roza during Ramzan. If they are opposed to hijab then we have a leader who wears hijab and works to keep the unity among communities.”
However, a local bakery owner Mohammed Irfan notes that “There are some doubts being created about the Gulbarga North MLA in the constituency. She has a tough fight on her hands.”
Among the “negative points” being listed against Fathima is that she was not active during the Covid pandemic in 2020-21. Sait contests the charge, claiming “Madam did her best. We were distributing kits on her behalf. She is 60-years-old and had to protect herself during the Covid period”.
Fathima however enjoys the confidence of top Congress leaders including Kharge, ex-CM Siddaramaiah and state party chief D K Shivakumar, with whom her husband had been closely associated with.
At Shaikh Roza, several local Congress leaders suggested that Fathima would be a front-runner for a minister’s post from the minority community in the event of the Congress victory in the polls.
The BJP, which is hoping to gain from the division of Fathima’s Muslim votes, is highlighting her “failures” in addressing issues in the Hindu localities in the constituency.
At his campaign meeting near Shaik Roza, Chandrakant Patil asked voters not to be distracted by offers of funding by rival parties for women’s self help groups and improvement of local temples. “The MLA has neglected your areas. Even though I lost the poll in 2018 I was able to bring nearly Rs one crore of funds for development of the constituency. Imagine how much can be done if I am elected. Through my foundation students are being given scholarships. When I am elected in a few days there will be plenty of funds for the development of houses in slums, do not fall for offers from others,” Patil tells the gathering on Aland Road.
Of a total of 187 women candidates (seven percent of all candidates) for the Karnataka polls, the JD(S) has fielded women nominees in 15 seats, followed by the BJP at 12 and the Congress at 11, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has fielded the maximum number of women candidates at 17.
There are altogether nine Muslim women candidates (five per cent of all women candidates) in the fray, including one each from the Congress and JD(S) and several Independents.
While the Congress has fielded a total of 11 Muslim candidates in this election, the JD(S) has given tickets to altogether 23 Muslim nominees. The AAP has fielded 17 Muslim faces in all, but none of them is a woman candidate.
The Muslim community makes up over 12 per cent of Karnataka’s population. In the outgoing state Assembly, there are altogether 7 Muslim MLAs, all of whom are from the Congress party.
