BJP set to face test of its minority outreach in UP

LUCKNOW: Amid a sharp Hindutva pitch in poll-bound Karnataka, the BJP is set to face the most profound test of its minority outreach in UP, which goes to poll in the second and final phase of urban local body (ULB) elections on Thursday.
The BJP has fielded more than 350 Muslim candidates, including six for nagar palika parishad and 12 for nagar panchayat chairman seats in the ULB polls. The party, though, stayed away from fielding a Muslim on any of the 17 mayoral seats.
A top BJP leader said that performance of the party's Muslim candidates in the civic polls would eventually decide its future political strategy vis-a-vis opposition, primarily the Samajwadi Party which banks heavily on consolidation of the minority vote.
Sources said that the UP BJP minority morcha was strategically pitched to campaign aggressively in the minority dominated pockets where the ruling party potentially faced stiff competition from the opposition.
“The civic elections would be the biggest reflection of our work amongst the Muslim community,” UP BJP minority morcha chief Kunwar Basit Ali told TOI. Experts said that the BJP leaders, including CM Yogi Adityanath, have been consistently citing how the state government provided free vaccination and free ration to the poor without any discrimination on caste and religious grounds. Ali said that around 4.5 crore of the beneficiaries of the PM Gareeb Kalyan Anna Yojana, entailing free ration to the poor, were Muslims.
The BJP, as a matter of fact, has been keenly focusing on consolidation of socio-economically backward Pasmanda Muslim community – a move which experts said could help BJP blunt aggression of opposition. The most recent example of BJP’s Pasmanda Muslim outreach was the nomination of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) vice-chancellor Tariq Mansoor to the legislative council.
Earlier, Danish Azad Ansari, also a Pasmanda Muslim, was inducted in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet as a minority welfare minister. Besides this, a host of Muslim faces were propped to head various boards – Ashfaq Saifi (Minority Board), Kaiful Ansari (Urdu Academy), Iftikhar Ahmad Ansari (Madrassa Board) and Zafar Farooqi (Sunni Waqf Board).
Sources said that BJP’s recent electoral victories during last year bypolls in the SP bastion of Rampur and Azamgarh have also been weighing heavily in the party's aggressive minority outreach.
Experts, however, said that BJP's recent face-off with the Congress over the latter's alleged call for banning VHP’s affiliate Bajrang Dal in Karnataka and then over screening of controversial movie ‘The Kerala Story’ – CM Yogi announced making the movie tax free in UP – could also factor in the saffron outfit’s performance in minority-dominated seats.