Top Gujarat Cleric Slams Muslim Women In Elections

[ex-q-zit]

"No Men Left?": Top Gujarat Cleric Slams Muslim Women In Elections

Ahmedabad: Those who select Muslim women to run for office are against Islam and are weakening the religion, the chief cleric of the Jama Masjid in Ahmedabad said on Sunday, in a stunningly misogynistic comment, a day before the second phase of voting for the Gujarat elections.

"If you talk about Islam, see there's nothing more important in this religion than namaz. Did you see any women here reading the namaz? If it were okay for women in Islam to come in front of everyone, they wouldn't have been stopped from doing so," Shabbir Ahmed Siddiqui told news agency ANI.

"They are stopped from coming to mosques to read the namaz because women have a particular position in Islam. That's why, those who give election tickets to Muslim women, are rebelling against Islam," the Shahi Imam said.

"Are there no men left that you are bringing in women? This weakens our religion. Weakens how? If you make your women MLAs and councillors, we won't be able to defend the hijab," he said, referencing the controversy in Karnataka over the headscarf worn by some Muslim women.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WATCH?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WATCH</a> | Those who give election tickets to Muslim women are against Islam, weakening the religion. Are there no men left?: Shabbir Ahmed Siddiqui, Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid in Ahmedabad<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Gujarat?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Gujarat</a> <a href="https://t.co/5RpYLG7gqW">pic.twitter.com/5RpYLG7gqW</a></p>— ANI (@ANI) <a href="https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1599360633669005313?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 4, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Entirely unaware of the gross sexism in his statements, he continued, grinning and seeking validation, "To fight elections, one must meet people door-to-door, both Hindus and Muslims... Therefore, I am staunchly against it. You can give election tickets to men."

"The reason they are giving tickets to women is that these days women have a greater say in things. So if you take women in, the entire family will come in too. I can see no other reason than this," Mr Siddiqui said.

The cleric's fundamentalist rant comes a day before voting in 93 constituencies in Gujarat, the second phase of a closely watched state election which sees the ruling BJP, Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress in a three-way fight.

Muslims make up for around 10 per cent of the state's around 6.4 crore people, but Muslim women have next to zero representation in the legislature - a statistic mirrored on the national level as well.

NDTV

 

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Congress's Imran Khedawala Only Muslim MLA In 182-Member Gujarat Assembly

Imran Khedawala of the Congress is the only Muslim candidate elected to the 182-member Gujarat Assembly in the just concluded polls, which saw the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) register a landslide victory.

The outgoing Assembly had three Muslim legislators, all from the Congress.

Mr Khedawala, the sitting Congress MLA from the Jamalpur-Khadia Assembly constituency in Ahmedabad city, won the election by a margin of 13,658 votes on Thursday to retain the seat.

He defeated his nearest rival, Bhushan Bhatt of the BJP, in the Muslim majority constituency, where state president of the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and former MLA Sabir Kabliwala was also in the fray.

The Congress had fielded six Muslim candidates, including three siting MLAs. Of these, five candidates, including two MLAs, lost.

In 2017, three of five candidates from the minority community fielded by the main Opposition party had emerged victorious. Muslims account for around 10 per cent of Gujarat's population.

Congress candidate and sitting MLA Gyasuddin Sheikh lost to BJP's Kaushik Jain in the Dariapur Assembly segment of Ahmedabad district. Another legislator of the Opposition party, Mohammed Javed Pirzada, faced defeat in Wankaner in Morbi district at the hands of the saffron outfit.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate took away 53,110 votes and contributed in the defeat of Pirzada.

In the Abdasa seat in Kutch district, Congress' Muslim candidate Jat Mamad Jung was defeated by a margin of around 9,000 votes by BJP nominee and former Congress MLA Pradhyumansinh Jadeja.

The AAP had fielded Muslim candidates on three Assembly seats - Jamalpur-Khadia, Dariapur and Jambusar - but none of them won.

The BJP did not field a single Muslim candidate, while 12 All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) nominees from the minority community were in the fray, but all of them were trounced. Two of these AIMIM candidates finished third in their respective constituency.

In the just concluded elections, the BJP won 156 seats, the highest by any party in Gujarat's history, while the Congress came a distant second with 17 seats. The AAP emerged victorious in five Assembly segments.

NDTV