Lucknow: After the announcement of the municipal election results in Uttar Pradesh, where over 60 Muslim candidates emerged as winners, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a statement Sunday claimed that the “doubts in the minds of the minority community about the party have now been busted”.
Political analysts, however, feel the ticket distribution to Muslims in municipal polls was mere “tokenism”.
The BJP had fielded 395 Muslim candidates — 358 for the posts of councillors and 32 for the posts of chairpersons of nagar panchayats. Five candidates were fielded for the posts of chairpersons of nagar palikas (municipal councils).
According to the BJP Minority Morcha, while none of the BJP’s five Muslim candidates for municipal council chairperson post won, five of the 32 fielded for the posts of chairpersons for nagar panchayats registered victory. ThePrint has seen the list of winners shared by sources in the BJP.
Among the 358 candidates fielded for the posts of councillors, at least 56 registered a win.
Members of the morcha said that the number may increase as results from more wards are still flowing in.
Speaking to ThePrint, Kunwar Basit Ali, state president of Uttar Pradesh BJP Minority Morcha, said that many Muslims sought tickets in the municipal elections this time.
“The party follows the slogan of ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’ and, hence, tried to give maximum tickets to candidates from the community,” he added.
In a statement issued by the BJP Minority Morcha Sunday, Ali said the victory of the BJP candidates in Muslim-dominated areas showed that the community no longer harboured “doubts” about the party.
However, for Shashikant Pandey, head of department of political science, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, the party’s move was mere “tokenism”, at least in Uttar Pradesh.
“While it is too early to make a statement about the success of the BJP among the Muslims, as of now, it seems the effort is limited to tokenism when it comes to ticket distribution,” he said.
Mirza Asmer Beg, professor in the department of political science at Aligarh Muslim University, pointed out that the BJP had not given any ticket to Muslims for the 17 mayor posts in UP.
“The party’s outreach to Muslims seems more like optics as they have fielded Muslim candidates in the lower level of the government. But it helps them gain some points among the liberal classes where the BJP has a majoritarian image,” he told ThePrint.
Elections were held in two phases for a total of 14,684 posts in different municipal bodies across Uttar Pradesh on 4 May and 11 May. These comprised 17 mayor posts, 1,420 municipal corporator posts, 199 posts of chairpersons of municipal councils, 5,327 posts of municipal council members, 544 posts of chairpersons of nagar (town) panchayats, and 7,177 posts of members of nagar panchayats.
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‘Tokenism’ say experts
Speaking to ThePrint, Shashikant Pandey said that while the BJP tries to portray itself as an inclusive party that talks about “sabka saath, sabka vikas,” its Muslim outreach shows that it is still lagging in terms of connecting with the community.
He, however, added that the party was working hard to do so.
“In the beginning, the BJP was known as a party with an urban base that enjoyed support in the upper castes and ‘brahmin-baniyas’. The party knew that if it wants to make inroads in UP, it would have to reach out to the Other Backward Classes (OBC), which was the Samajwadi Party’s (SP) vote base,” he said, adding that the BJP did work on that front.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi, being an OBC, was fielded from Varanasi, and he led from the front. Barring Yadavs, the BJP has successfully made inroads in the OBC and economically backward classes vote bank, and now, the party, along with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is working hard to woo the Pasmanda Muslims (who form almost 85 per cent of the total Muslim community in the country),” he said Pandey.
Beg, however, said that the BJP had not fielded anyone from the Muslim community in the 2022 UP assembly polls and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
“The party did not give any ticket to a Muslim face in any of the major elections in UP. Its outreach to Muslims seems more like optics. On the local level, it helps it make some inroads into the Muslim community by changing the narrative that the party is averse to Muslims,” he added.
Talking about the welfare schemes being extended to the Muslim community, Pandey said that “there has been no step-motherly treatment” in that sphere.
“Some (divisive) comments are made by the leaders (BJP), but when the community goes to vote, it thinks about them. However, the benefits of the welfare schemes have been extended to the Muslim community where poverty is a huge problem. There has been no step-motherly treatment in the delivery of the benefits of welfare schemes,” he said.
This helps the BJP connect with the community, Pandey said, “but the outreach still remains tokenism in ticket distribution at least”.
He added that for the BJP, giving tickets to Muslims in the assembly elections and co-opting the members in the cabinet of ministers is still a far cry.
The winning candidates
In the elections for nagar panchayat chairpersons, five Muslim candidates who won include Vali Mohammed from the Gopamau panchayat in Hardoi; Phool Bano from the Chilkana nagar panchayat in Saharanpur; Kausar Abbas from the Sirsi Sambhal nagar panchayat; Nadeemul Hasan from the Dhaura Tanda nagar panchayat in Bareilly; and Farkhanda Zabin from Bhojpur Moradabad.
Around 56 candidates won as ward members in different districts like Bulandshahr, Ayodhya, Hardoi, Amethi, Sant Kabir Nagar, Kanpur Dehat, Lucknow, and Shamli, among others.
In Ward 4 in Bharatkund madrasa in Ayodhya, BJP’s Shoaib Abbas registered a win, while Zainab Jahan and Javed Ahmed won from Paintepur and Leherpur, respectively.
In Hardoi, Nazeeb Hasan, Phool Bano, Islamuddin and Naeemuallah won as ward members.
In Amethi, too, BJP’s Jeba Khan won from nagar panchayat Ward 2, while in Gorakhpur, BJP’s Hakikun Nishan stood victorious as a ward member.
From Ward 5 of the Siwal Khas Nagar Panchayat, BJP’s Shehzaad won while Rukhsana won from Ward 3.
In Lucknow, Lubna Khan from the party secured the highest votes as a ward member, while in Kanpur Dehat, Ravish Naqvi won as a ward member.
From Ward 22 of Pukhraya, BJP’s Shakeel Ahmed won, while in Sant Kabir Nagar, Independent candidate Rabia Ansari won with BJP’s support in Haisar Bazar Dhanghata as ward member.
In Pukhrayan of Kanpur dehat, BJP’s Shakeel Ahmed won from a ward, while Sehwag Ansari registered a win from Ward 4 of Jhinjhak.
From Ward 9 of nagar panchayat Sikandrabad in Bulandshahr, Raza Naqvi won as a member. In Ward 15 of Bulandshahr’s Shikarpur, Fehmeeda won, while Sambra Begum won from Ward 16 of Dibai.
Further, in Chilkana nagar panchayat, four BJP Muslim candidates — Amjad, Aatifra, Tauqir and Inaam — emerged victorious. In Shamli nagar panchayat, Salman Ahmed won from Ward 6.
However, not all BJP candidates from the community were victorious.
For the 199 posts of the chairperson of the municipal council, the BJP had given tickets to five Muslim candidates in the districts of Budaun (Kakrala municipal council), Rampur (Rampur and Tanda municipal councils), Azamgarh (Mubarakpur municipal council) and Bijnor (Afzalgarh municipal council). None of them managed to win.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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