New Delhi: Nearly a decade after the deadly communal riots in western Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is hoping to salve Hindu-Muslim divides in the region by hosting a “sneh sammelan” (gathering of love) titled Ek Desh, Ek DNA (One Country, One DNA). To be held next month, this will be the first of 12 such events that the party plans to host in predominantly Muslim constituencies ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
“We are hosting the first such meeting in a Muslim-dominated area so that our message is loud and clear,” Kunwar Basit Ali, the president of the UP BJP Minority Morcha, told ThePrint.
“Muzaffarnagar was also chosen because it is the land of Chaudhary Charan Singh, who experimented with the idea of Jat-Muslim unity, but which was later hijacked by the Congress and Samajwadi Party. The party wants to restore unity among Muslims who view the BJP as an enemy, and heal divisions created by opposition parties,” he added.
These lofty goals apart, election arithmetic is also a factor, said state BJP leaders.
“The BJP faced stiff resistance from the SP-RLD (Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal) combine in the last Lok Sabha and assembly elections. They drew support from the RLD’s Jat base and the SP’s Muslim base. The BJP now has to break the unity of the SP-RLD and woo Muslim voters towards the party,” said a BJP leader from western UP.
While the BJP swept all 14 Lok Sabha seats from western UP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, its tally reduced in 2019 as the SP-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) alliance won six constituencies. The BSP won the Nagina, Amroha, Bijnor, and Saharanpur seats, and the SP bagged Moradabad and Sambhal.
Similarly, while the BJP had won 100 of the 126 seats across the 24 districts of western UP in the 2017 assembly election, its tally dropped to 85 in the 2022 state polls. The RLD — now led by Jayant Chaudhary, the grandson of Chaudhary Charan Singh — alone had won eight seats.
In addition to sneh sammelans, the BJP’s Muslim outreach efforts include identifying Modi mitras (friends of Modi) among minority communities and organising Sufi music performances in constituencies as well as for G20 delegates.
“Very few Muslims generally vote for the BJP, but the Rampur election shows that a section of the community did come out to support the party,” said a Muslim BJP leader from UP. “By continuous outreach, we can at least weaken Muslim consolidation towards any other party and also increase our share of the votes.”
Last December, the BJP candidate won an assembly byelection in Rampur — a Muslim-majority constituency and the stronghold of SP leader Azam Khan — by over 34,000 votes. The byelection was necessitated by Khan’s disqualification due to a hate speech conviction.
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Jat-Muslim ‘brotherhood’ in western UP
Choosing Muzaffarnagar as the venue of the first sneh sammelan seems to be a well-though-out move. The district falls in what is known as the sugarcane belt of UP and has a significant population of Muslim and Jat farmers.
So far, the BJP’s poll rhetoric in the region has often harked back to the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots and been geared towards polarisation. But with the SP and RLD gaining ground, this time the BJP seems to be trying a new strategy to make greater inroads.
“Muslims and Hindus, including the Jat, Rajput, Gujjar, and Tyagi communities, have lived together in western Uttar Pradesh for centuries. So, why is there still division along the lines of caste and community? Our DNA is the same, and we should accept leaders like Yogi Adityanath, Rajnath Singh, and Sanjeev Balyan regardless of their caste or community,” said Ali.
According to him, there are 80,000 Muslim Rajputs and 1 lakh Muslim Jats in Muzaffarnagar. In the adjoining Saharanpur and Shamli districts, he claimed, there are 1.8 lakh Muslim Rajputs and 1 lakh Muslim Gujjars respectively.
“The government recognises all religions as equal, and when the prime minister of our country says that Muslims are our brothers and the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) emphasises that our DNA is the same, divisions among communities should come to an end,” he added.
Among the leaders invited to the Muzaffarnagar sneh sammelan are Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP state president Chaudhary Bhupendra Singh, and Muzaffarnagar MP and Minister of State Sanjeev Balyan. A BJP leader who is involved in preparations for the event said that prominent Muslim leaders are expected to be a part of the proceedings.
Sufi push, selfies from ‘Modi mitras’
At the BJP national executive meet in January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had urged party leaders to organise ‘Sufi nights’ as a way of reaching out to Muslims. This idea is now being implemented.
The BJP Minority Morcha is not only planning Sufi sammelans (gatherings) but is also preparing to host musical nights for G20 delegates at different venues.
On 15 March, minority leaders of the party will meet in Delhi to create an organisational structure for Sufi outreach.
Jamal Siddiqui, national president of the BJP Minority Morcha, told ThePrint: “In this meeting, we will discuss the organising of Sufi sammelans, Sufi nights, and nukkad (street corner) meetings. We will also recruit in-charges for these events across the country and involve Sufi leaders.”
Sufism is a mystical branch of Islam that seeks a direct personal relationship with God through spiritual practices, including devotional songs.
According to Siddiqui, the BJP Minority Morcha has already identified in-charges for the “Modi mitra programme” in 65 constituencies.
“In the Modi mitra programme, we will select people from minority communities who have received benefits from government welfare programmes as well as those who support PM Modi. We are identifying these beneficiaries from various Lok Sabha constituencies (with a sizeable minority population) and we will start a programme for them to post their selfies (on social media),” Siddiqui explained.
So far, the BJP has identified 65 Lok Sabha constituencies in 10 states and Union territories where religious minorities comprise more than 30 per cent of the population.
Among the seats identified, there are 13 each from UP and West Bengal, six each from Kerala and Assam, five from Jammu, four from Bihar, three from Madhya Pradesh, two each from Telangana and Haryana, and one each from Maharashtra and Lakshadweep.
The UP constituencies include include Bijnor, Amroha, Kairana, Nagina, Sambhal, Muzaffarnagar, and Rampur.
BJP Minority Morcha sources said that 5,000 minority beneficiaries or Modi supporters will be selected from each of these constituencies to post their selfies and will likely be encouraged to participate in a May rally in Delhi that will be addressed by the PM.
‘Speeches alone won’t suffice’
These outreach measures follow close on the heels of Modi telling BJP leaders at the party national executive meet that they should connect with Bohras, Pasmanda Muslims (depressed classes), and others in the community without expecting votes in return.
Then, at a Dawoodi Bohra event in Mumbai last month, Modi announced that he was there as a “family member” rather than a prime minister and extolled the “unprecedented atmosphere of trust” that had been built up over the last few years.
Echoing Modi, BJP Minority Morcha national general secretary Sabir Ali told ThePrint that just giving speeches will not be enough to warm Muslims towards the party.
“A lack of education is contributing to a sense of alienation in the community. Merely giving speeches will not be enough to end animosity towards the BJP. We must reach out to these communities at their doorsteps with open arms and engage them in conversation,” he said.
“By presenting them with data regarding the progress made by Modi’s government in the last nine years, as well as the accomplishments of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministry (between 1998 and 2004), we can demonstrate the differences between the National Democratic Alliance government and those led by regional parties or the Congress, who merely pay lip service to these communities. Such data can help bridge the gap and create a sense of trust among minorities,” he added.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
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