‘Narrow approach of the media about BJP and Muslims has led to a trust deficit’.
New Delhi: Out of the 46 parliamentary constituencies of the country that have more than 35% Muslim population, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won on 14 seats, down from the 17 that it had won in 2014.
While it had won on all the 12 such seats of Uttar Pradesh in 2014, this time it could win on five such seats—Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Kairana, Bahraich and Bareilly.
However, an analysis of the votes polled in 2014 and in 2019 in the seven seats of Uttar Pradesh that the NDA could not retain this time, gives a clear picture that in all these seats, the BJP has either managed to hold on to its 2014 vote share or, in some cases, increased it.
For example, in Bijnor, the BJP candidate had got 46% in 2014; this time, the party got 45%. Similarly, in Amroha, it was 48% in 2014; this time it was 46%.
In Moradabad in 2014, it was 43% which remained the same in 2019. In Rampur, the BJP had got 37% votes in 2014, which increased to 42% this time. In Saharanpur, it got the same vote share that it had secured in 2014—40%.
The party’s vote share in Sambhal increased from 34% to 41%, while in the Nagina seat, the numbers remained the same, 40%. In the Shrawasti parliamentary constituency, it was 36% in 2014, which increased to 44% this time.
BJP strategists believe that the Muslims voted for them overwhelmingly in Bihar where it fought the election in an alliance with the Janata Dal United (JDU).
In 2014, the BJP had lost on all the four seats that have more than 35% Muslim population. This includes Araria that has 41% Muslim population, Kishanganj 57%, Katihar 43% and Purnia 38%. However, this time the NDA won on all these three seats, except Kishanganj.
A BJP strategist said: “In Araria, it was the BJP candidate who won with 53% votes. In Katihar, our JDU nominee defeated a stalwart like Tariq Anwar.
In Purnia, the victory margin was more than 2.5 lakh votes. These numbers would not have been possible if the Muslims had not voted for us. The Congress and the RJD have created this narrative that we are an anti-Muslim party so that Muslims stay away from us and these parties can have a buffer of 10-15% Muslim votes even before the election begins. The Muslims have realised this now. The roads that we built in these four regions were used by everyone to commute and not just by Hindus. The gas cylinders were given to everyone, not just Hindu homes. Muslims have voted for us because they saw that we can change their lives in a positive way.”
In West Bengal, of the 11 seats where the Muslim population is more than 35%, the BJP won on two such seats—Raiganj where the Muslim population is 48% and Maldaha Uttar where it is 50%. It could not win on any of these two seats in 2014.
In Jangipur, where the Muslim population is 64%, its candidate came at the second position, getting 3.17 lakh votes, which was 70,000 more than Abhijit Mukherjee of Congress, who came third.
Similarly in Malda Dakshin, where the Muslim population is 54%, the BJP candidate lost by a slender margin of 8,000 votes.
A BJP Rajya Sabha MP said: “There was a lot of discontent against Mamata Banerjee among the Muslim voters too. They were being harassed by the goons of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) all these years. The theory that Muslims vote as one bloc is losing weight now. Now, the Muslim voters do not go by the words of their community elder, but use their own mind. Many will dismiss our performance as Hindu polarisation, but if they go to the ground and speak to the Muslim voters, they will see the truth. We intend to increase our following among the Muslim voters and that is why our primary slogan has been Sabka saath sabka vikas and not just Hindu ka saath aur uska he vikas.”
However, according to observers of West Bengal politics, in Maldaha Uttar, the Muslim vote got divided between members of the Ghani Khan family—Isha Khan Chaudhury and Mausam Noor as a result of which Khagen Murmu of BJP won.
In Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP retained its two seats that it had won in 2014, Ladakh and Udhampur.
In Assam, of four such seats, the BJP wrested Karimganj from the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), while it lost the Nowgong seat by 16,700 votes that it had won in 2014. Political observers feel that with Badruddin Ajmal’s AIDUF not fielding a candidate in Nowgong helped in the consolidation of the Muslim vote in favour of Congress.
In Telangana, of the two such seats, BJP retained the Secunderabad seat. “Bihar and Bengal have come to us as very good news as there is no doubt that we have also got Muslim votes there. This has rattled the Congress which till now had called itself as the sole custodian of Muslim voters. The work done by the Ministry of Minority Affairs in the last five years is for everyone to see. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi put in a lot of effort to bring changes in the lives of ordinary Muslims,” the Rajya Sabha MP added.
A pre-poll study done in March 2019 by CSDS-Lokniti among 10,000 respondents spread across 19 states of India in which 13% of the respondents were Muslims, 26% said that Narendra Modi should get another term.
This was more than what Christians (20%) and Sikhs (21%) said; 14% of the Muslims who took part in the study said that their second choice after Congress was the BJP and not other parties like the Samajwadi Party (SP) or the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
BJP leaders said that the narrow approach of the media regarding BJP and Muslims and to some extent the irresponsible statements made by some of its leaders had led to a trust deficit between the BJP and Muslims.
A Union minister said: “The number of devotees who can avail the Hajj quota which was 1,36,000 in 2014, when the Modi government came in, now stands at 2 lakh. Did the media write about it as extensively as it covers the irresponsible statements of a few of our leaders? Abolishing of triple talaq was done to help the Muslim women, but even that was criticised by some experts just because it was done by a BJP government. However, the results have shown that the Muslim voters have thanked us for what we have done.”