Targeting Bihar’s Muslim voters at a time when all other parties are wooing the community ahead of the Assembly polls, the ruling BJP plans to hold a state-level convention of its Muslim workers in Patna.
Following the damaging communalist signals that erupted against the party during its strains with ally JD(U) over the Narendra Modi advertisements in June, the BJP hopes to re-establish its rapport with Bihar’s Muslim voters in the convention, slated to be held at the Sri Krishna Memorial Hall on August 7. At 16.5 per cent of Bihar’s population, Muslims number 1.36 crores and play a crucial role in deciding the election results.
BJP national spokesman and MP from Bhagalpur, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, said on Wednesday that “several thousands” of Muslim workers of the party would participate in the convention. “The BJP is no longer untouchable to the nation’s Muslims. In Bihar, they have realised the worth of our alliance government’s commitments for their welfare and well being,” said Hussain, a former Union minister.
“I am no longer the BJP’s Muslim poster boy. I am now the party’s mouthpiece and I have remained a minister in the BJP-led central government, which all speak volumes about my party’s unbiased feelings of solidarity towards India’s Muslims,” said Mr Hussain in reply to a question.
The BJP’s Bihar state president, Dr C.P. Thakur, said despite all efforts by the Opposition RJD and the Congress to appease the Muslims, the community has realised how they failed it during their successive regimes. “The NDA government in Bihar has taken several steps for the uplift of the Muslims,” he added.
Abdul Rehman, president of the Bihar BJP’s minorities’ cell, said the convention would work as to further mobilise the state’s Muslims for the party in view of the Assembly polls, scheduled in November.
BJP sources said the party wants to match the strides made by the JD(U) towards endearing the Muslims to the leading party in the alliance government. “We want to correct the impression that the BJP also had a role to play in deciding this government’s pro-Muslim agenda,” said a BJP general secretary.