Higher Education Minister C N Ashwath Narayan on Thursday said that the BJP would take steps to woo Muslim voters, ahead of the 2023 Assembly and 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
“The BJP has never said all Muslims are bad. But, our party has never indulged in appeasement politics the way Congress and Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah do to woo a single community,” Narayan said, while speaking at a press conference.
“We have never said that Hyder Ali was a fanatic like his son Tipu Sultan was. Hyder Ali was a good ruler whereas his son was a fanatic and anti-Kannada. In a similar fashion, there are a lot of Muslims who are good Muslims. We will try to explain to them our party’s programmes and convince them to vote for us in these elections,” the minister said.
Narayan, who is in charge of the BJP’s Vijaya Sankalpa campaign to reach two crore voters from January 21, was responding to a question on former chief minister B S Yediyurappa’s statement in Shivamogga that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked BJP leaders to take Muslims along in order to bring the party back to power.
Claiming that the BJP has no competition in forthcoming election, Narayan said that with PM Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah at the helm, the party had learnt the art of beating ‘anti-incumbency’ long ago.
“BJP in the state is not at all facing any anti-incumbency,” Narayan said.
“If anyone says that the BJP is facing anti-incumbency, it will fall flat on their faces after the election results are out. Surely, Karnataka will spring surprise like Gujarat by handing a crushing defeat to both Congress and JD(S). Both parties are fighting for distant second place in the Assembly election,” he claimed.