Sanjay Raut waters down comments on Muslim voting right, Shiv Sena questions silence on Kashmiri Pandits

Under intense fire for his comments about disenfranchisement of Muslims, which had also revealed the unease within his own party, Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut chose to water his statements down. The Sena, however, questioned the silence of the secular brigade on the rights of the Kashmiri Pandits forced to flee the Valley after religious persecution.

In his weekly column on Sunday in the Sena organ Saamna, of which he is the executive editor, Raut had said that the use of Muslims as a vote bank was a "worrying and troublesome issue" and also charged that pro-Hindutva parties were clandestinely helping hardline Muslims leaders to mutually benefit from communal polarisation. The comments were slammed by Sena's ally BJP as "unconstitutional".

"(I) never said that voting rights of Muslims must be revoked. (Late Sena supremo) Balasaheb Thackeray said 15 years ago... that if Muslims have no voting rights, then the masks of leaders who project themselves as messiahs of Muslims will drop down," said Raut on Tuesday, adding that the "politics of such leaders will be over, and their shops will be closed" if this happens.

Raut said they believed in the Constitution drafted by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and added that they had not asked for voting rights to be revoked based on factors like religion and caste as this was not possible.

An editorial in Saamna, which has Sena president Uddhav Thackeray as the editor, however, slammed secularists, who were vocal on the Muslim disfranchisement demand, for their silence on the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits.

"...all have a right to stay in their homes in a democracy. This also applies to the Hindu Pandits who were forced to flee the Kashmir valley. Of course, even if the country is that of Hindus, they have no permission to speak about their rights. But the spurious people in the country have tremendous worry about the rights of non-Hindus, especially Muslims," said the editorial.

"There is a tremendous commotion in the country over the right of Muslims to vote. But has this shouting brigade ever spoken about the right of Kashmiri Pandits to exercise their franchise?" the editorial questioned.

The remarks about Muslims had also revealed the unease within the Sena, with senior leader and environment minister Ramdas Kadam trying to downplay them. Sena spokesperson Arvind Bhosale too tried to whitewash these statements by noting that they referred to Sena chief Bal Thackeray's speech during the 1999 Lok Sabha polls, when the Shahi Imam of Delhi had issued a fatwa, asking Muslims to vote for the Congress. In turn, Thackeray had said that in case Muslims were disenfranchised, these leaders would not flock to them for vote trading.

Moreover, Muslim leaders point out that in 1995, when the Sena and BJP came to power in Maharashtra for the first time, Muslims in regions like the Konkan, had voted for them. The situation had also been repeated in last year's state assembly polls, they added.