As BJP prepares for UP review, one big question: Why didn’t Pasmanda Muslims vote for it?
As the BJP prepares to begin its review of the Lok Sabha results in Uttar Pradesh, where its tally fell from 62 seats in 2019 to 33 seats this time, one of the considerations is the Pasmanda Muslim community and why the party failed to win its votes despite wide-scale outreach efforts over the last year and a half.
In the run-up to the elections, the BJP launched a series of programmes aimed at Pasmanda Muslims and gave prominence to the community’s leaders both in the government and party cadre in the state. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his public addresses repeatedly spoke of the community, alleging that both the Congress and Samajwadi Party (SP) had neglected it.
“Pasmanda” is a Persian word that means the “ones left behind”. It is used to describe the marginalised classes among Muslims. Pasmanda has become an umbrella identity used by backward, Dalit, and tribal Muslims. Pasmanda Muslims, who account for about 80% of Uttar Pradesh’s Muslim population, have a considerable presence in constituencies such as Mau, Ghazipur, Azamgarh, and even Varanasi.
Pasmanda Muslims have been the subject of several BJP outreach initiatives, from sammelans and sneh yatras to meetings with intellectuals. In differentiating between Pasmanda Muslims and the rest of the minority community, the party also held qaumi chaupals earlier this year that mainly focused on Pasmanda Muslims.
In July 2022, a BJP national executive conclave in Hyderabad made plans to focus on Pasmanda Muslims following Modi’s bid to ask the party to reach out to “deprived and downtrodden” sections in all communities. According to UP BJP insiders at the time, the party’s hopes to get the support of Pasmanda Muslims had risen after an estimated 8% of voters from the community favoured the party in the Assembly polls that year even though the SP had a strong alliance with other OBC-based regional parties.
After the Assembly polls, the BJP formed the government and nominated Danish Azad Ansari, a Pasmanda Muslim, to the state Legislative Council as an MLC and appointed him a state minister. Ansari is currently a Minister of State for Minority Welfare, Muslim Waqf and Hajj. The BJP also nominated former Aligarh Muslim University Vice-Chancellor Tariq Mansoor, another Pasmanda Muslim, to the Legislative Council and appointed him the national vice president of the party. During last year’s local body polls, the BJP fielded more than 300 Muslim candidates, of whom about 90% were Pasmandas.
In his election speeches, Modi often mentioned Pasmanda Muslims. At one rally, he only claimed to have the blessings of Muslim women — the BJP believes they voted for it in previous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls — but also alleged that both the Congress and SP, in the name of appeasement, benefited only select minority leaders and neglected Pasmandas.
“Parties like the Congress and Samajwadi Party always practised politics of appeasement but never did anything for the political, social and economic uplift of Muslims. When I talk about Pasmanda Muslims, they get spooked. Because people at the top took the benefits and forced Pasmanda Muslims to live in such conditions,” Modi said at a rally in Aligarh on April 22.
After a recent review meeting at the party headquarters in Lucknow, state BJP president Bhupendra Chaudhary said, “We have accepted the results and we bow before the decision of the public. But as a political organisation, we have asked all our senior workers to camp Lok Sabha seat-wise and gather information. Based on this information, we will move forward. We will try to understand all such reasons because of which we could not get the expected results.”
BJP’s state Minority Morcha chief Kunwar Basit Ali said, “It is true that a lot has been done for the community, right from giving organisational posts to nominating MLCs to even ministerial berths. Twenty lakh (houses under the) Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and 2.61 crore ration cards have been provided to Pasmanda Muslims. There have been special initiatives for the weavers’ community as well… But despite all this, the community hardly voted for our candidates. We are analysing the reasons and future outreach will be based on these deliberations.”
Sources in the party said while the BJP was able to get some Pasmanda votes in the state’s western region but not enough in constituencies such as Kairana, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar and Meerut in central and eastern regions. Sources said the BJP failed to get even 1% of the community’s vote share in many seats. A booth-level analysis in Pasmanda Muslim-dominated areas showed the BJP got merely 10% of the community’s votes. The party did, however, get some votes from sections of upper-class Muslims, including Muslim Rajputs, Jaats, Tyagis, Ashrafs, Pathans and Turks, BJP sources said.
Emphasising the need for contemplation on how and why the party failed to convince Pasmandas, another party leader said, “We need to closely look into the reasons. Consider this, Om Prakash Rajbhar is the Cabinet minister for Minority Welfare. His son was contesting in the Ghosi Lok Sabha seat, which has one of the largest concentrations of Pasmanda Muslims, that is, Ansaris. Danish Ansari was made to camp there but still, it was the SP’s Bhumihar leader who won.”
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