GIVING MUSLIMS A HAND

In a state where it has largely been relegated to a position of irrelevancy, the Congress is trying hard to get back into contention with an extravagant nod at its old 'big tent' politics.

- Prashant Srivastava

Back in the day, that phrase connoted a space capacious enough to accommodate everyone, including the minorities. But after decades of being targeted by the BJP for 'Muslim appeasement, the Congress had often appeared mortified of inviting that charge. Not any more, it seems. On October 27, Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Rai strode up purposefully to Sitapur jail to meet Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, whose esteem among local Muslims matches his controversy index generally. When jail authorities denied him permission, it prompted a sit-in outside the jail gates. Rai was making a larger symbolic point: that the Congress is ready to stand with the Muslims in their distress. Even if the beneficiary of this "humanitarian" gesture was the Rampur strongman who, Rai alleged, is being harassed by the ruling BJP in UP to "settle political scores". Khan was sentenced to a seven-year jail term in a 2019 fake birth certificate case along with his wife and son.