By Muslim Mirror Staff

New Delhi : Muslims are becoming irrelevant or are being made irrelevant in a country which is the house of second largest Muslim population in the world .

The representation of Muslims of parliament is decreasing constantly  and political parties are treating Muslims like ‘untouchable in the ‘largest democracy’ of the world.

Take for instance in national capital Delhi, where the population of Muslims are more than 13% but no Muslim candidate  has been fielded by any of the major political parties.

A week before the candidates were declared, four Congress leaders had written to party president Rahul Gandhi stating that there was resentment among the people and political circles for not giving a single ticket to any Muslim leader in Delhi.But the request fall on deaf ears.

At national level ,Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded just seven Muslim candidates in the ongoing general election – it’s contesting 437 seats in the 545-member lower house of parliament.

There was not a single Muslim among the 80 members of parliament Uttar Pradesh in the last  Lok Sabha. Fortunately one Muslim woman  won a by-election and reached parliament.

BJP had fielded the same seven candidates in 2014 too, but none of them won. It was the first time in India’s history that the ruling party  had no Muslim member of parliament.

The Trinamool Congress is one of the few parties that nominates Muslim candidates in seats that are not Muslim-majority and manages to win.

In the 2014 election, Congress contested 464 seats but fielded just 31 Muslim candidates – of those, only seven won. Much hasn’t changed in this election – only 32 of the party’s 423 candidates are Muslim.

Between 1980 and 2014, the number of Muslim MPs in the lower house of the Indian parliament – and hence their percentage –diminished by more than half (49 in 1980 to 22 in 2014) . This evolution is all the more significant as the share of Muslims in the Indian population rose during the same period.