PM Modi's 'meat consumption' comment aside, BJP eyes minority voters in over 66 Lok Sabha seats

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments on eating non-vegetarian food during the holy month of Sawan may have led to allegations of polarisation from the Opposition, but the minority vote has not been overlooked by the BJP. The party has pursued minority voters in over 66 Lok Sabha seats in the past year and a half where their vote accounts for more than 30 per cent of the electorate, said party leaders.

During a rally at Udhampur in Jammu on Friday, PM Modi criticised opposition leaders for allegedly hurting sentiments by consuming non-vegetarian food during Navratri and showcasing it in videos. Modi's comments referred to a video featuring Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejaswi Yadav eating mutton.

“The law does not stop anyone from eating anything, but the intentions of these people are something else,” Modi claimed.

It must be added that Eid Al-Fitr, a festival where Muslims typically consume goat, was celebrated on April 10-11, coinciding with the advent of the nine-day-long Hindu festival Chaitra Navratri from April 9, during which people refrain from eating non-vegetarian food.

Despite the differences, the BJP has made concerted efforts to reach out to Muslim and other minority voters. Jamal Siddiqui, president of the BJP's minority morcha, stated that the party has been actively engaging with minority voters in over 65 Lok Sabha constituencies where the minority vote exceeds 30% for more than two years now.

Among the 66 seats targeted by the BJP to engage with minority voters, 14 are from Uttar Pradesh, including Kairana, Nagina, Saharanpur, Bareilly, and Meerut. Additionally, seven seats from Assam have been identified, including Kaliabor, Nagaon, Dhubri, and Karimganj. In West Bengal, 13 seats, including Abhishek Banerjee's Diamond Harbour seat, Basirhat, Murshidabad, Jadavpur, and Birbhum, are also being focused on by the party for minority outreach efforts.

Apart from Rahul Gandhi's seat in Wayanad, the BJP is targeting Malappuram and Idukki among the eight seats in Kerala. In Delhi, the focus is on Northeast Delhi and Chandni Chowk constituencies. In Bihar, the targeted seats include Purnia, Araria, Kishanganj, and Katihar. All five seats in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as the two seats in Goa and Ladakh, are also on the list of constituencies where the BJP is actively engaging with minority voters.

In addition, Gurgaon and Faridabad (Haryana), Bhopal and Mandsaur (Madhya Pradesh), Secunderabad and Hyderabad (Telangana), Ramanathapuram (Tamil Nadu), in addition to Bhiwandi and Aurangabad (Maharashtra) are on the list, too.

In these seats, which spread around 200 assembly segments, the BJP has concentrated efforts by holding meetings with religious leaders routinely. The minority morcha, as well as the respective state units of the morcha, deputed an in-charge each to carry out these exercises.

"Sufi Samvaad" (meetings with Sufi leaders) were organised, along with meetings with leaders of prominent Gurdwaras in these regions, and deliberations with Fathers and Cardinals of churches in the identified constituencies. According to Siddiqui, a total of 16,000 such meetings were conducted as part of the outreach efforts to engage with minority voters.

Intensifying its efforts ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the morcha has deputed 20 people in each of the 65 Lok Sabha seats, who are entrusted with organising two baithaks (sit-ins) with voters every day.

“The key responsibility of these people is to reach out to women minority voters and inform them of what we have done with regard to developmental parameters for them. And the second segment is young and first-time voters, who are told about the differences between the UPA-era government and Modi’s,” Siddiqui says. In addition, they are also reaching out to beneficiaries of the schemes in the minority communities.

Additionally, the morcha has reached out to 10 lakh minority voters through 4,000-odd meetings in 34 states and UTs covering 1,524 assembly segments across the other seats in the country, Siddiqui said.

Apart from that, the BJP had also rolled out a ‘Modi Mitr’ scheme in June last year, through which minority supporters of Modi were given certificates. “Till now, we have 22 lakh Modi Mitrs who will independently go out into their own communities to convince people to vote for the BJP,” Siddiqui added.