Bengal BJP wants to field more Muslims in Lok Sabha elections

Not only that the Bengal State unit of the BJP has been fiercely demanding to field party president Amit Shah as a parliamentary candidate from North Kolkata in an apparent bid to hammer home the party’s sincerity vis-a-vis Bengal, but a large section of the State saffron unit is also wanting the leadership to field far more Muslim candidates in the next year’s Lok Sabha elections, sources say.

“Yes we want Amit Shah ji to contest from North Kolkata. His candidature will spice up the workers not only in the city but throughout the State,” Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said expressing his wish to introduce more number of Muslim faces in the party’s candidate list.

This considering the fact that the State has an effective 30 percent minority voters. “Already we had showed our intention fielding considerable number of Muslims in the panchayat elections to highlight Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s philosophy of Sabka Saath Sab ka Vikas,” a State secretary of the party said adding how “we had fielded nearly 900 Muslim candidates in the rural polls.”

Though Bengal has 27 per cent Muslim population, the trend of polling brings the number to about 30 per cent as they vote in hordes and almost to the full strength of their community if compared to the Hindus and other communities who do not vote in such large numbers, experts say.

Last time the BJP had fielded two Muslim candidates in the general elections “but that was a different story then as we were in number four position. But today we are the main opposition party and the people have started to visualize as the next rulers of Bengal. So we have to include a good number of Muslim candidates so as to reach out to the entire population. And in fact our party wants to reach out to the minorities, take them along in Bengal’s development. We will show that the Muslims are



not the jagirs of Mamata Banerjee who has done nothing for them save giving lip service,” said Hussain Ali another State leader adding the “decision however will be taken by the centralleadership.

When asked as to why the RSS was proposing to rename Islampur in North Dinajpur bordering Bihar and Bangladesh as Ishwarpur if at all the BJP wants to project a truly secular face in the State, the leaders said he had no information about that.

According to Dilip Ghosh the BJP does not field candidates accordingto their religions but “we have received applications from the people from minority community expressing their willingness to contest from our party. This also shows how even Muslims have become fed up with the Mamata Banerjee regime.”

Ghosh said how despite BJP being in power in a number of States there was no major riot there and the Muslims were living in perfect peace.  “If they can live peacefully in Jharkhand, Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan and MP, then why can’t they live peacefully in Bengal. They will definitely vote for us.”

A section of the BJP leaders also feels that the Central Government’s “good works” towards eradicating the “vice of Triple Talaq” had influenced the Muslim women who would silently vote for the BJP.

However, TMC leader Sadhan Pandey said “no secular person worth one’s salt will join the BJP. The Muslims know what Mamata Banerjee has done for them and how she is single-handedly resisting RSS’ dangerously radical policy in India. They will never side with the BJP.” Shah had fixed a target of 22 out of 41 Lok Sabha seats for the BJP which the TMC calls “more than absurd and a joke.” Their leader and Minister Firhad Hakim says “let them first save their two sitting MPs and then look for 22 seats. This time the BJP will be brought to zero in Bengal.”