On 20th March 2025, Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan, and Akhilesh Yadav among others attended the Iftar dinner hosted by the Indian Union Muslim League (LUML) in New Delhi.
Touted as an opportunity to cement religious harmony and unity, Iftar parties have always been a means for politicians to bolster their ‘secular’ [read pro-Muslim] credentials. However, the same politicians were conspicuously absent from Maha Kumbh, the historical Hindu event that attracted millions of devotees to Prayagraj earlier this year.
Not to forget, Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan had resorted to peddling fake news about Maha Kumbh and the deadly stampede. Without a shred of evidence, Bachchan had claimed that the world’s most contaminated water was in Maha Kumbh due to the dumping of dead bodies of stampede victims.
During a media interaction on 3rd February, Jaya Bachchan said, “Where is the water most contaminated right now? It’s in Kumbh. Bodies (of those who died in the stampede) have been thrown in the river because of which the water has been contaminated… The real issues are not being addressed. The common people visiting Kumbh are not receiving any special treatment, there is no arrangement for them. They are lying that crores of people have visited the place, how can such a large number of people gather in that place at any given point?”
Similarly, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge had also questioned the Maha Kumbh 2025 and the arrangements made by the government for it. He insinuated that the expenses for Maha Kumbh are met by taking away or preventing the social welfare of the poor in the country.
“Ganga main dubki lene se gareebi dur hogi kya” (will poverty be eliminated by taking the holy dip in the Ganga river), Kharge asked adding that he does not want to hurt anyone’s religious sentiments but when there are poor children lacking food, when the people are struggling to find employment, our government leaders are competing with each other to take the holy dip in the Ganga. They keep on taking dip after dip until they get a good enough photo for the TV cameras. But they do not care about the real issues plaguing the people,” Kharge had said in January this year.
Incidentally, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi had back in 2001, taken a holy dip at the Kumbh Mela in 2001, when her Indianness was rightly being questioned, however, years after a long political career, Gandhi was neither seen at the 2007 Kumbh nor at the once-in-a-century Maha Kumbh 2025. Even if age concession is given to Sonia Gandhi, Congress’s unheralded Prime Ministerial candidate Rahul Gandhi, the youth leader forever, also skipped Maha Kumbh although he didn’t skip the politicization of the Hindu festival.
It is amusing that these opposition leaders avoided attending Maha Kumbh and only used the grand Hindu event for vulture politics and peddling fake news to score political points against the BJP, but flocked to an Iftar party organized by a party with roots in Islamic fanatic Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Muslim League, the group instrumental in India’s bloodied partition. Such one-sided engagement raises questions about where their affiliations truly lie. Are they genuinely driven by ‘inclusivity’ or want to appease the Muslim votebank by mollycoddling Islamist political outfits?
There was a time when the Congress-led UPA government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court, outrightly denying the existence of Lord Ram mocking the Hindu belief in the worst possible way, however, BJP-led NDA’s ascension to the helm of power and a Hindu resurgence forced Congress into turning on its pretentious “Janeu over the coat” mode. Since 2014, Congress leaders, especially the Gandhi family have been on electoral temple runs, invoking his supposed Kashmiri Brahmin roots, redefining Hindu beliefs as per their convenience in an audacious attempt at branding themselves as the “real Hindus” who embody Hindu Dharma’s inclusive spirit rather what they accuse BJP of embodying—a politicized caricature. Yet, when it comes to supporting Hindu causes or being a part of any historical moment for Hindus, the Gandhi family hardly prioritizes Hindus.
It was seen how the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi declined the invite to the consecration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya last year, apparently fearing that attending the historical event would displease their Muslim votebank. He, however, was repeatedly found peddling lies about the attendees of the ceremony and mocking Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. This year, when crores of Hindus from all walks of life celebrated the grand festival of Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj, Rahul Gandhi, the self-declared Tapasvi, the knower of Hindu traditions, Abhay Mudra and whatnot did not show up at Prayagraj. Apparently, for the Congress party, Hindu faith is that sharpened arrow kept in its quiver, which is drawn out only when the party has to take aim at its political bête noire—BJP, and then swiftly stashed back once the shot has been fired.
While political leaders attending Iftar parties is not essentially a problem, however, the optics reveal their priorities. A Hindu celebration spanning two months came and passed, yet no senior leaders from the Congress party’s top echelon attended Maha Kumbh. Sonia Gandhi was for a long time an MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareilly and now her son represents the same seat in Lok Sabha, Uttar Pradesh has been Priyanka Gandhi’s political karmabhoomi but when such a massive religious gathering was happening in Uttar Pradesh’s holy city of Prayagraj, and yet the Gandhi family decided to avoid visiting Maha Kumbh.
Apparently, the Congress party would have thought that attending the Maha Kumbh organized by the BJP government would serve as bad optics for them, however, the party had no qualms in allying with an Islamist outfit like IUML and sending its top leaders to grace the Iftar dinner.
IUML and its controversial credentials
Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which claims to have been born after Indian Independence in 1948, is actually an off-shoot of Pakistan founder and Islamist Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s All India Muslim League (AIML). The All India Muslim League was succeeded by the Muslim League in Pakistan and the Indian Union Muslim League in India. On its website, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) claims that its motto is secularism and communal harmony but has often openly indulged in carrying out those objectives which are contrary to its own motto.
The Muslim League had strongly advocated for the establishment of a separate Muslim-majority nation-state, Pakistan successfully led to the partition of British India in 1947 by the British Empire. The birth of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in December 1947 was a part of the intention to keep the spirit of the All-India Muslim League.
Muhammad Ismail, the first President of the Indian Union Muslim League after it split up from Jinnah’s Muslim League, had actively participated in the partition movement of the country and was an ardent supporter of the creation of Pakistan. Interestingly, Muhammad Ismail, who claimed IUML was a secular outfit had, in fact, supported the retaining of Sharia law for Indian Muslims in the Constituent Assembly after India’s independence.
Mohammad Ismail, the founder President of IUML, the first political party of Muslims in the new state of India even bargained with Congress to “recognise the League as the sole representative of Muslims”, similar to the policies of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had always asserted he and his party AIML was the sole representative of the Muslims in undivided India.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the so-called ‘epitome’ of India’s pluralism, whose Congress had once rejected the proposal of Jinnah in 1937 for a coalition government with the Muslim League, joined hands with the IUML in Kerala post-independence. The opportunistic design of Congress further encouraged political Islamists like IUML to resort to more communal politics in the name of protecting the interests of Muslims in the country.
The Indian Union Muslim League has been notoriously known for flaring up communal incidents in the state of Kerala. The party was found involved in the planning as well as the execution of the brutal Marad massacre in Kerala in 2003 as per the report of Justice Thomas P Joseph Commission which was set up to investigate the incident. The report had declared the massacre as “a clear communal conspiracy, with Muslim fundamentalist and terrorist organisations involved”.
Further, in 2017, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a fresh First Information Report (FIR) in connection with the probe and had named Indian Union Muslim League leaders P.P. Moideen Koya and Moyeen Haji as accused of funding, conspiring and executing the riots.
While Rahul Gandhi once declared IUML a “completely secular” party and Congress’s top leadership attends its political-religious gathering in Ramzan, the IUML has consistently been taking forward its Islamist agenda. Last year, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), along with other Muslim groups in Kerala, objected to election dates, citing Jummah on Fridays saying that Muslims hold large congregations to offer Jummah Namaz on that day. They decided to approach the Election Commission to push the dates. Basically, the Islamist outfit wanted even democratic processes to be conducted as per the convenience of Muslims.
In 2023, the IUML had declared support to Palestinian Islamic terror outfit Hamas even as the latter was killing and raping Israeli people. Incidentally, the Congress party has also taken a pro-Palestine stand and its leader Priyanka Gandhi’s heart intermittently bleeds for the Gazan people.
The same year, the IUML leaders raised anti-Hindu slogans including those threatening to hang them (Hindus) in front of Temples and burn them alive, during Kerala’s Kasargod during protest over Manipur unrest.
The IUML leader KM Shaji previously called the LGBTQ+ community a “shame” and that “they are the worst humans”. Moreover, the party has also exhibited its misogynistic mindset in the past. Back in 2021, the IUML disbanded the state committee of Haritha- the women’s wing of the Muslim Students Federation (MSF) after the women members refused to withdraw their sexual harassment complaint filed with the Kerala Women’s Commission against some of the male MSF leaders, who allegedly used derogatory remarks against them.
In 2022, the Kerala IUML leaders opposed gender neutrality and sex education in the state’s school curriculum decrying them as an ‘atheist-leftist conspiracy’.
Conclusion
While the IUML may have adapted to India’s democratic framework, its history, anti-Hindu mindset and Islamist proclivities suggest that it has not abandoned the divisive agenda Jinnah’s Muslim League thrived on. Yet, Congress heavyweights like Sonia Gandhi, Kharge and other opposition leaders pander to the Islamist outfit and devour Khajoors of alliance with them. Apparently, for the opposition, cosying up to the IUML, a vestige of Jinnah’s anti-Hindu and divisive legacy, promotes secularism and peace, but attending Maha Kumbh, the world’s largest religious human gathering, the biggest unifier would have made them appear communal or perhaps, ‘Hindu hardliners’. Blinded by the supposed ineluctable imperative to appease the Muslim votebank has brought opposition to a point where the so-called ‘secular’ parties of 2025 are transitioning into the Muslim League of the 1940s.
