Teahe Last week, at the National Executive meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party, several party leaders were a bit embarrassed. All of them were big leaders. That’s how he made the cut to attend the meeting of the party’s top decision-making body. But when these 300 BJP men reached the venue in the national capital, they were asked to leave their mobiles phones out. Lest they record the proceedings! they May be great leaders in their own right, but clearly they Huh Not trustworthy enough to carry mobile phones to his party meetings.
Later At the meeting the next day, he was happy to tell anyone who cared to listen how Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to reach out to the Muslim groups of Pasmanda and Bohra, As that good Muslim professionals and elite. he also had asked To make them participate in church functions and organize Sufi music evenings.
these representatives May Thought it was a good message to spread, which the PM’s “Everybody’s company will help in everybody’s growth, slogan and the fact that he advocated outreach to Pasmanda in the National Executive of Hyderabad conclaveas well. Soft attitude towards minorities is visibles This is understandable when elections are due in Christian-majority Nagaland and Meghalaya. They were wrong, of course.
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cat out of the bag
When TV channels started ‘breaking news’ about how the PM wanted his party colleagues to reach out to sections of Muslims, the media sleuths of the ruling party got immediate instructions. Late into the night, he was frantically calling reporters across TV channel, newspaper, And agencies don’t report that news.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis first tried to play it down by saying that the PM talked about ‘marginalized communities’ without taking specific names. But Modi’s message was too clear for the more than 300 participants to miss. The cat was out of the bag. For once, the BJP’s media managers had very limited success. Most TV Channels, Websites, And the news of PM’s outreach to Muslims appeared in the newspapers.
So what? Why would the BJP not want the media to publish what the Prime Minister himself has said?
Needless to say that BJP media persons never work without instructions from above. And no one in BJP will try to stop Publication of any part of the Prime Minister’s speech unless he himself desires it to be so. published, So, did he talk about Muslims by mistake and wanted it to stop later? impossible.
Modi told about pasmanda On Hyderabad executive meeting in last july The year, It made headlines in the media for weeks and months. Then BJP had no problem with it. PM Modi was building in Delhi what he built in Hyderabad. Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya was so inspired by the PM’s speech in Hyderabad that he later promised To “serve” the Pasmanda Muslims in Lucknow as their “watchmen”.
It was quite a change. Shortly after the results of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in 2017 were out, I was sitting with a senior BJP functionary, a former party president, at his Delhi residence. “Your party leaders say that the BJP may not have fielded a single Muslim candidate, but a section of Muslims voted for you! Is it true?” I asked.
He smiledand said, “That’s what we have to say. But they never voted for us and never will.” Then he said, “Still we have to get a Muslim minister. We have to get him through the (Legislative) Council.”
The Prime Minister’s remarks about the Pasmanda Muslims in Hyderabad signaled a change in attitude. But the BJP has not been able to make much progress in the last six months, Even though it fielded four Pasmanda Muslims in the Delhi municipal elections. Former Rajya Sabha MP of All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaj Ali Anwar Ansari told my colleague Abantika Ghosh It was a pleasant surprise when the Prime Minister delivered a speech in Hyderabad last week.
“I wrote You have to end mob lynchings, bulldozers and harassment in the name of ‘love jihad’ to make people believe in you, says the Prime Minister. And then, just before the Gujarat elections, they free Rapist of Bilkis Bano. Bano Pasmanda is a Muslim… then how can people trust her?” They said.
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Behind Modi’s minority outreach
In Hyderabad, the PM also asked the party to organize visits of Christian delegations from the Northeast to Kerala to highlight what the party was doing in their interest there. of Christians, Modi also built on that in his speech to the national executive in Delhi, when he asked leaders to attend church events.
So, why is it that PM Modi is asking his allies to reach out to Muslims and Christians? Because he is sure that his welfare schemes have benefited the marginalized sections of the minorities and the BJP has a good chance of winning him over. This BJP leader will believe us. And it also helps in building the image of a politician at home and abroad.
Then why not go to town with this outreach plan? Why deploy media managers to try to make sure people don’t know about it? Because he is sure that the core anti-Muslim vote bank of the party might not like it. BJP leaders will also have the same faith in us.
You may be wondering about the dangers of following seemingly contradictory political strategies and messages. Well, there is no contradiction in the mind of the voters when it comes to Modi. Watch how the party on its promise of amended citizenship law managed to achieve the same result – electorally – in different contexts in different states.
In the 2016 assembly election in Assam, the BJP successfully sold it as a measure to drive out illegal immigrants (read Muslims) from Bangladesh. And in the 2018 Tripura assembly election, the BJP promised a uniform citizenship law for migrants from Bangladesh (Bengali Hindus in this case) and managed to oust the Left-led government. Let’s look at another example.
BJP-led government in Haryana gives facilities to convicted rapists ram rahimrepeated release from prison on parole; Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar continues to defend minister accused of sexual harassment by athletics coach, And when acclaimed women wrestlers accused party MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of sexual harassment, the BJP kept mum. BJP’s detractors may find these examples contradictory but voters are known to see things differently. And he has shown it in election after election.
In the immediate context of the BJP not paying much heed to what PM Modi said about Muslims in the National Executive meeting, it seems the party is re-thinking about its election strategy. July 2022 Hyderabad Meet.
The BJP probably does not want to create any confusion in the minds of its core mass base by showing a blood-soaked heart for the minorities.
DK Singh is the political editor of ThePrint. He tweeted @dksingh73. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Tarannum Khan)