Muslims for anti-Cong campaign

PANAJI: The Goa Muslim Forum (GMF) on Tuesday said it will appeal to Muslim voters all over Goa to boycott the Congress in the coming elections as the party had “betrayed” the community.
Addressing a press conference here, GMF chief co-ordinator Shaikh Iftikhar said that the forum had the backing of 155 Muslim NGOs including “mosque NGOs, dargah NGOs and social NGOs”.Shaikh said that the Congress had taken the Muslim community for granted. “Since liberation, Muslims have always been with the Congress. All these years, we did not make any demands with the party. But, in the last 15 years, the Congress has never given a ticket to a Muslim candidate,” he said.
“This time, we had asked that a Muslim candidate should be put up in Mormugao. We also suggested the candidature of Saifullah Khan, who has been a councilor and well-known social worker. But, instead the Congress has put up a Muslim candidate in Fatorda which does not have that large numbers of Muslim voters,” Shaikh said.
He said that Fatorda had around 1,800 Muslim voters, while Mormugao had 3,800 voters from the Muslim community. “We are now going to campaign in every constituency against the Congress and will appeal to all Muslims to cast their vote for any party but the Congress party,” he added.
When asked if the GMF would also campaign against M K Shaikh, the Congress’ lone Muslim candidate in Fatorda, Shaikh replied in the affirmative. “He is a Congress candidate, and we will campaign against the party in Fatorda too.” Asked if the Congress candidate in Fatorda was a member of the GMF, Shaikh replied in the negative. “We just want to tell the Congress party that once the Muslims boycotted it in Uttar Pradesh, it has never been able to come to power there again,” he added.
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