Asifa Khan elevated as BJP’s national executive member

Speaking to this newspaper on Thursday,Khan said that some Muslims might be having apprehensions and concerns about Modi having been declared as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and that needed to be addressed. “I will be providing feedback to the party about the concerns which Muslims want to be addressed. We are also collectively working on what Muslims want from the BJP across the country,” she said. However,it would take some time for the vision document to be ready,she said.

Stating that she was currently reaching out to the Muslim leaders across the country to remove their misgivings about Modi and the BJP,she said she was also coordinating with prominent Muslims leaders from Lucknow,Delhi,Hyderabad and other places coming to meet CM. A prominent teacher of Darul Uloom Deoband and a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board,she is also reported to have met Modi a few weeks ago.

Khan coordinated with Muslim intellectuals who took part in a “youth conclave” organised in Gandhinagar a few months back. It was attended,among others,by former Cabinet secretary Zafar Mahmood. Khan has been aggressively defending Modi in electronic as well print media over allegations that about 2,000 persons,mostly Muslims,were killed in 2002 communal riots during Modi’s regime. Khan,who lives with her family near Darul Uloom Kantharia,Gujarat’s biggest Islamic seminary on the outskirts of Bharuch town,was appointed as a member of BJP’s state-level executive committee after 2012 Assembly elections. She is the only Muslim woman in BJP’s state executive committee. The only other Muslim in the party’s executive committee is former IPS officer Abdullah Ibrahim Saiyed.