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With a massive minority outreach on the cards in the run-up to next year’s general elections, the BJP is ready with a series of events in western Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP’s first “Sneh Milan: Ek Desh, Ek DNA Sammelan” will be held next month in Muzaffarnagar, which witnessed one of the worst post-Partition communal riots in 2013. Among those invited to the event are Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP state president Bhupendra Chaudhary, Union Minister and Muzaffarnagar MP Sanjeev Balyan and state minister Somendra Tomar.
BJP Minority Morcha’s state president Kunwar Basit Ali said in almost every Lok Sabha constituency in west UP there are 2.5-3 lakh people on average from these communities whose support the BJP is seeking. Mainly involved in agricultural activities, the BJP currently does not have a toehold among these communities. According to him, there were around 1.8 lakh Muslim Rajputs in Saharanpur and 80,000 in Muzaffarnagar.
Ali said there are around one lakh Muslim Gujjars in Shamli and one lakh Muslim Jats in Muzaffarnagar.
“At these conferences, the party will discuss how Hindu leaders from Jat, Rajpur, Gujjar, and Tyagi communities can be accepted by Muslims of these four caste groups as their leaders. They should not only prefer Muslims from their communities as their leaders,” Ali said.
The Minority Morcha leader said Hindu leaders from these communities would be on stage at the events along with the party’s prominent Muslim leaders. “The point is that Rajput Muslims should consider Rajnath Singh and Yogi Adityanath as their leaders. Likewise, Jat Muslims should accept Sanjeev Balyan and Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary as their
Leaders,” Ali said. “Hindus and Muslims among Jats, Rajputs, Gujjars and Tyagi fraternities live together in western UP. We will try to convince them that we are people of one country have our DNA is the same. Together, we have to take the country forward.”
For outreach, the BJP has nationally identified around 60 Lok Sabha constituencies in 10 states and a Union Territory where religious minority communities comprise more than 30 per cent of the population. The initiative will culminate with a public rally in Delhi in May addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The seats from UP on the party’s list include Bijnor (38.33 per cent), Amroha (37.5 per cent), Kairana (38.53 per cent), Nagina (42 per cent), Sambhal (46 per cent), Muzaffarnagar (37 per cent), and Rampur (49.14 per cent).
In his address to the BJP’s National Executive last month, Modi asked party workers and leaders to reach out to Pasmandas, Bohras, Muslim professionals, and educated Muslims without expecting votes in return and initiate confidence-building measures. Last year at the BJP National Executive, the prime minister spelled out the party’s strategy of Muslim outreach, telling leaders to reach out to “the deprived and downtrodden” sections among all communities. This was seen as a signal to reach out to Pasmanda Muslims, an umbrella term for Backward, Dalit, and tribal Muslims.
According to Pasmanda activists and scholars, the community makes up about 80-85 per cent of the Indian Muslim population. Some of the communities whose support the BJP is trying to get in west UP, such as the Rajputs and the Tyagis, are categorised as Ashraf Muslims. Ashrafs claim to be the descendants of Muslims from the Islamic homelands of Arabia, Persia, Turkey, and Afghanistan (Syeds, Sheikhs, Mughals and Pathans), or of upper-caste converts from Hinduism (Rajputs, Gaurs, and Tyagi Muslims).
