India’s BJP enlists 25,000 Muslim community leaders for 2024 election

On Nov 11, 2023

FILE PHOTO: Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi (2nd L), prime ministerial candidate for India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), receives flowers from a Muslim cleric after the inauguration of a hospital owned by a Muslim trust at Balasinore town, east of the western Indian city of Ahmedabad November 10, 2013. Trailing in opinion polls and stunned by the rise of Modi, India's ruling Congress party is limping into a clutch of state elections, underlining the struggle it may face to retain power when the nation votes next year. Surveys last week showed that Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could win as many as four of the five states going to the polls over the coming month. REUTERS/Amit Dave (INDIA - Tags: ELECTIONS POLITICS)/File Photo

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is going to enlist Muslim community leaders for 2024 election.

Associated Press report the party has made a 2500-member list of the Muslim community leaders.

The leaders should promot the party to neighbours and relatives at events such as weddings and tea sessions at friends’ homes and speak about how the BJP’s welfare policies benefit all communities, and talks up India’s status as a rising global power under Modi.

The party looks for community leaders like educators, entrepreneurs, clerics and retired government employees willing to “objectively” assess Modi, said Jamal Siddiqui, head of the BJP’s minorities unit.

Modi Mitrs and BJP officials responsible for election strategy said the party hopes to use its economic record and its plans to introduce religion-agnostic laws on inheritance and gender rights to win over underprivileged Muslim voters, including women, in 65 key seats.

Specifics of the BJP’s Muslim outreach strategy, such as the messaging it is using to target voters in these seats, have not been previously reported.

The campaign is part of a larger push to woo India’s 200 million Muslims, with whom the BJP and Modi have a long and fraught history.

Muslims and rights groups allege some BJP members and affiliates have promoted anti-Islamic hate speech and violent vigilantism, targeted non-profits run by other religions with regulatory action, and demolished Muslim-owned properties.

Modi denies religious discrimination exists in India. Violence between Muslims and the Hindu majority is “deep-rooted” but only makes headlines now because political rivals use it to target the party when it holds power, said senior BJP leader Syed Zafar Islam, who is Muslim.