Why Furfura Sharif, Muslim shrine Owaisi visited in Bengal, could be key to Mamata’s return

In an interview to ThePrint, Furfura Sharif cleric Peerzada Abbas Siddique accused Mamata of ‘appeasing, rather than uplifting Muslims’. He is set cleric to launch party & fight polls.

Peerzada Abbas Siddique | Facebook

Kolkata: A prominent Muslim cleric is all set to ensure that Furfura Sharif, an influential shrine located around 45 km from Kolkata, will be critical to the West Bengal elections scheduled to be held later this year. 

Peerzada Abbas Siddique, 33, told ThePrint that he will launch a political party and fight the elections to take on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as “she has divided the state on communal lines”.  

In an exclusive interview to ThePrint, Siddique accused the chief minister of “appeasing, rather than uplifting Muslims”, and blamed her for “paving the way for a communal force like BJP” to enter the state. All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi had visited the shrine and met Siddique Sunday.

“It is her cheap appeasement policies that has created a divide between Muslims and Hindus in Bengal. Our Hindu brothers think that we get favours from the ruling party, and they are deprived,” Siddique told ThePrint. “It is this perception that has allowed the ruling Trinamool to use Muslims as vote-banks. My Hindu brother now hates me for no fault of mine. And this is the reason they rely on a communal force like BJP.” 

This is the first time that a Muslim leader has accused the chief minister of adopting communal politics, a charge usually hurled at her by her political opponents, including the the BJP, the Congress and the CPI(M). 

An influential cleric

Furfura Sharif is located in Hooghly district’s Jangipara. The shrine, which follows the teachings of Sufi saint Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddique who is popularly known as ‘Dada Huzur’, is one of the prominent religious sites for Muslims in the state. 

Peerzada Siddique is a fourth-generation descendant of the Sufi saint. He will be the first of the clerics to float a political party. Toha Siddique, his higher-ranking uncle, had endorsed Mamata in the 2011 assembly elections but never formally joined politics. 

The shrine is believed to hold command over Muslims in Howrah, Hooghly, South 24 Pargana, North 24 Pargana and Dinajpur districts in the state. These five districts are spread over at least 90 assembly constituencies where Muslims are a dominant force.

Over the past decade, political leaders from all parties including the CPM, the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and even the BJP have made a beeline for the shrine. 

Siddique told ThePrint that the political patronage has not benefited the community.

“Every political party, including Congress and CPM, used us but Trinamool brought the maximum damage by being the self-pronounced saviour. They, in reality, did not do anything for upliftment,” he said. “We appealed to the chief minister in 2019 to fight the National Register of Citizens (NRC) at the Supreme Court. But that day, she sent police to our holy shrine, levelled criminal charges against us and put many of us behind bars. This is her politics.” 

Siddique said he will be the face of the alliance that he has formed with the AIMIM and “eight other organisations”. “We are talking to several tribal, Dalit and other Muslim organisations. We have also appealed to the downtrodden Matua communities to join hands with us,” he said. “As of now, we have nine organisations that have agreed to join us. We will announce the name of the front next week.”

Siddique said his party would field candidates in at least 44 seats, while other constituents of the new front may field candidates in another 45 to 50 seats. 

Furfura Sharif is located in Hooghly district’s Jangipara | By special arrangement

TMC could face the heat

Political analysts ThePrint spoke to said the new front could hurt the ruling Trinamool Congress’ prospects as the party holds all the 90 Muslim-majority seats in South Bengal.   

“Malda and Murshidabad are strongholds of the Congress. CPM also has a vote bank among Muslims in these districts. Mamata’s forte is South Bengal’s Muslim-dominated districts and that is close to 30 per cent of the vote share,” political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said. “If AIMIM and Abbas Siddique join hands, Mamata Banerjee’s Muslim vote-bank in South Bengal may get fragmented.”

According to Prof Abdul Matin of Jadavpur University, who has done an elaborate research on Furfura Sharif, the shrine has at least 2,200 mosques across the state under its command, and some of them are directly affiliated to the shrine.

“It has remained a significant place for Bengal politics,” he said. “Senior politicians across parties visit the shrine before elections to get blessings of the Pir saheb and ensure support of Muslim community in their favour. This trend has increased even more in the past 10 years.” 

The Trinamool Congress, however, feels none of this will affect its electoral chances. “Muslims in Bengal are with Mamata Banerjee. They will not fall prey to outsiders,” TMC MP Sougata Roy said. “They are aware of how the AIMIM works. It is the BJP’s B team.”