In the BJP’s national executive meeting held last year in Hyderabad, the UP BJP had started an initiative to cement relations with Pasmanda Muslims, the ‘deprived class’ of minorities whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi had talked about making them his own. In that context, UP BJP’s Minority Front is trying to first woo the intelligentsia of Pasmanda Muslims. To convey BJP’s message to them, it is going to hold Pasmanda Muslim Prabuddha Sammelan. Along with this, Pasmanda Sneh Yatra will be taken out in Muslim-dominated Lok Sabha seats. This yatra will go through Delhi, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and reach Mewat in Haryana.
On October 15, a big Pasmanda Muslim conference will be held in Mewat. Through this strategy, BJP is preparing to become the first choice of Pasmanda muslims.
Why focus on Pasmanda Muslims?
Kunwar Basit Ali, president of the UP Minority Front, says that Pasmanda is a Persian word, which means a person in a convoy or group who has been left behind while traveling. 90% of the Muslims in UP are Pasmandas. They have got the maximum benefit from the schemes of BJP’s Central and state government. In this too, most of the people will remain of BJP only. BJP is already working for Pasmanda Muslims. About four and a half crore beneficiaries of the schemes are from this society. Pasmanda Muslims have also got 20 lakh Prime Minister’s houses. Since last year, Prime Minister Modi himself had asked them to focus on making them ‘own’. It was used in the Rampur Lok Sabha and Rampur assembly by-elections with more than 60 percent Muslim population. Its results also came out and both the seats came in BJP’s court. Most of the Pasmanda Muslim families lived in these. It is being said that some of them have sided with the BJP. That’s why now Pasmanda Muslim Conference will be held in the Lok Sabha with Muslim majority population and Pasmanda Sneh Yatra will be taken out.
Effort to woo Pasmanda muslims
Basit Ali says that gradually the confusion that Muslims had about the BJP is now going away. He claims that even 8 percent of Muslims voted for the BJP in the 2022 assembly elections. Not only this, BJP itself is giving respect to Muslims, now people have started understanding it. It can be understood in this way that the victory of the BJP in the Lok Sabha by-elections held in Rampur and Azamgarh could not have been achieved without the support of Muslim votes. Now, since the civic elections, the BJP is making its preparations at every booth in Muslim-dominated areas. In view of the large number of Pasmanda Muslims in West UP, BJP has also kept the area of Western UP as the focus of its yatra and conference.
Bet on Pasmanda candidates
This time, in the Yogi 2.0 government, instead of the Shia community, the BJP played a bet by making Danish Ansari, a face from the Pasmanda Muslim community, the Minister of State.
Along with this, only Pasmanda Muslims have been given place on other big posts in the government and organization. Among these, Ashfaq Saifi, Chairman of State Minorities Commission, Kaiful Vara, Chairman of Urdu Academy and Iftekhar Javed, Chairman of Madrasa Board were made from this community. National President of BJP Minority Front Ashraf Jamal Siddiqui also belongs to Pasmanda Samaj.
