BJP reaches out to Pasmanda (Backward) Muslims months after PM Modi's advice

Key members of BJP and Pasmanda (Backward) Muslims will meet tomorrow in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, which will probably be the first such formal meeting in the state. The meeting comes nearly four months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi switched from his party BJP to work for the upliftment of the Pasmanda Muslims in Uttar Pradesh. PM Modi had reportedly given this advice while addressing the BJP's national executive meeting in Hyderabad in July.

The BJP's Pasmanda Muslim outreach also comes less than a month after its ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat discussed sensitive issues like the Gyanvapi in Varanasi, the controversy in Karnataka, hate speech, population control and the campus hijab controversy. To meet Muslim intellectuals including former Chief Election Commissioner SY Qureshi and former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung.

At the BJP's Hyderabad event in July, Union minister Swatantra Dev Singh referred to the party's victory in UP's Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha by-elections to prove a point about Muslim support for the BJP. Constituencies that were considered strongholds of the Muslim-Yadav alliance of the Samajwadi Party.

Danish Azad Ansari, a young Muslim leader in Uttar Pradesh, was appointed Minister of State for Minority Welfare, Waqf and Haj after Yogi Adityanath won the election for a second term. He belongs to the Pasmanda Muslim community, which has a large vote bank among Muslims in India's most populous state, where the BJP has won big in the last two Lok Sabha elections, but is better placed in 2024 by cultivating a new vote bank.

The reach and influence of the BJP to connect with the Pasmanda Muslims in UP is yet to be investigated. The ink is not dry on the recent controversies involving top BJP leaders who have called for a "complete boycott" of the minority community, who appear to be Muslims, and other incidents of hate speech. These concerns among the Pasmanda Muslims will need to be addressed if the BJP is to win their trust.