IPA Newspack
  • Home
  • now
  • politics
  • business
  • markets

IPA /

IPA Special

IPA Special

Narendra Modi’s Muslim Outreach To Get More Seats Is A Pipe Dream

By Sushil Kutty

At 72, Prime Minister Narendra Modi thinks Muslims have a better opinion of him in 2023 than in 2014, and in 2019. With that in his political calculation, Modi believes the BJP will win 2024 Lok Sabha polls with 400-plus seats with communal-engineering. This is sheer pipedream.

At 64, Modi won 2014 riding the Hindutva tiger. The BJP cornered 31 percent of the total vote-share, the remaining 59 percent scattered among the divided Opposition, and not voted.

At 69, Modi won 2019 with an even bigger vote-share: 39/40 percent. The BJP won 303 seats. Again the votes were overwhelmingly Hindutva.

Both times, Modi never gave a thought to the Muslim votes. Out of bound, out of mind. The cow vigilantism, and the lynching spree, ensured neither Modi nor the Muslims saw eye to eye.

The poor opinion was/is mutual. And the media and the debates have kept the mutual distrust going. The Muslim-Hindutva hate-binary never wavered under much of the Modi years since 2014 and so far.

The 2022 5-states elections were a turning point, when the BJP used the Modi government’s central welfare schemes to woo the poorer sections of the Muslims, the pasmanda Muslims, the ones with a ‘dna match’ with the Hindu. Free rations, Ujjwala and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana became the focus. And winning Uttar Pradesh a second time in succession was a confidence-booster.

The BJP even claimed that Muslims in large numbers voted BJP in the recent Gujarat elections, too, which saw Modi go down to bare-knuckles, and ‘Vote me, I’m your Gujarati asmita’.

BJP won Gujarat with a landslide. But did the Muslims vote Modi/BJP like BJP claims? That is a grey area, but a referendum in Gujarat will clear the doubts. Almost the entire lot of Gujarat Muslims will vote against the BJP. The BBC-2’s ‘The Modi Question’ should have aired before, a week or two, the 2022 Gujarat assembly elections.

Modi wouldn’t have got the kind of mandate he got if ‘The Modi Question’ was telecast before the Gujarat assembly elections, or the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. Like they say, timing is of essence.

So, will Modi’s ‘communal engineering’ help the BJP get its hands on a good number of pasmanda Muslim votes along with a minimum 40 percent Hindu votes come 2024 general elections?

It is still early days, but time gallops when in election mode. And don’t say people have no idea of just how quickly time passes. Take the word of a journalist, elections move faster and closer than you’re likely to expect.

And there is an opinion forming that Modi’s outreach to pasmanda Muslims is already dead in the water. Also, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is moon-struck when thinking and talking of the pasmanda.

Only those who have married Muslims under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 would understand the Muslim mindset. Those who convert to Islam to marry Muslims will not. That’s the truth, and straight from the horse’ mouth.

Modi, perhaps, must have consulted Muslim leaders. But there are very few pasmanda ‘Islamic scholars’. Those who break heads with primetime anchors and Hindu ‘dharam gurus’ are mostly Ashrafi Muslims who claim Mughals their ancestors and would not recommend Muslims to vote Modi if the roof fell on them!

Actually, there is no such Muslim called a moderate. Islam does not differentiate. And the Muslim opinion of Modi has not changed in 9 years or, in the case of Gujarat, for 20 years. Whatever doubts were left have been cleared after the telecast of ‘The Modi Question’.

That being said, at 72 Prime Minister Narendra Modi has seen more summers than he had when he was 64. And perhaps he is banking on gut feeling. Not just a hunch. Besides, the man has lost very few elections in 20 years. So, let’s give him the benefit of doubt.

Then again, the benefit of doubt is a court thing. Muslims don’t hand out benefits of doubt. Not when it happens to be an individual named Narendra Modi, once Gujarat Chief Minister, who is now Prime Minister. Narendra Modi will never get the benefit of doubt from the Muslim who never doubted Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s role in Gujarat 2002.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BJP National Executive asked BJP leaders to reach out to voters of all denominations. “We have 400 days and we have to do everything to service the people. We have to create history,” Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis quoted Modi. “PM Modi asked the BJP members to reach out to every section of society, including minorities such as Bohras, Pasmandas and Sikhs, without electoral considerations.”

Modi said the BJP is not just a political movement but also a social movement. He spoke of India’s “sarvottam kaal” still to come. Tell that to a Muslim, pasmanda or Ashrafi, and mention Narendra Modi in the same breath, and the reaction will not surprise too many. (IPA Service)

Politics

AAP to contest all seats in MP assembly elections

February 5, 2023
Politics

New turn in UP’s OBC politics as Maurya backs caste census

February 5, 2023
Happening Now

Video shows Chinese balloon being downed by US missile

February 5, 2023
Politics

Assam CM says child marriage crackdown to continue

February 5, 2023
IPA Special

BJY Has Improved Rahul’s Image To The Congress Supporters But That Is Not Enough

February 4, 2023
IPA Special

China Reopening Changing Market Dynamics Impacting Importers

February 4, 2023
IPA Special

Union Budget 2023-24: Kerala Again Cold Shouldered

February 4, 2023
IPA Special

2023-24 Budget Keeps Key Issues Of Indian Workers Unaddressed

February 4, 2023
IPA Special

Modi Baiter Trinamool Spokesperson Saket Gokhale Is In ED Net

February 4, 2023
IPA Special

Israelis And Palestinians Do What They Do Best, But For Wrong Reasons

February 4, 2023
IPA Special

‘Let It Be Morning,’ A Stunningly Powerful Almost All-Palestinian Israeli Film

February 4, 2023
Happening Now

RBI says banking sector stable amid Adani stocks rout

February 4, 2023
Politics

Cong opposes private member’s bill against worship places law

February 4, 2023
Politics

Cong blasts ‘arm-chair liberals’ for criticising yatra

February 4, 2023
Politics

No plan for remote voting machines, clarifies govt

February 4, 2023
Politics

Chidambaram attacks govt’s anti-minority policy

February 4, 2023
IPA Special

BJP May Lose Power In Two Out Of Three North Eastern States After Assembly Polls

February 3, 2023
IPA Special

Modi 2’s Last Full Budget Ignores Indian Economy’s Basic Problem

February 3, 2023
IPA Special

Enforcement Directorate Is An Ally Of Modi Govt Against Opposition Parties

February 3, 2023
IPA Special

Deceptions In Plenty In The Union Budget 2023-24

February 3, 2023

An appeal

The legacy of IPA, founded by Nikhil Chakravartty, the doyen of journalism in India, to keep the flag of independent media flying high, is facing the threat of extinction due to the effect of the Covid pandemic. Only an emergency funding can avert such an eventuality. We appeal to all those who believe in the freedom of expression to contribute to this noble cause.
Click here to learn more

Share

Reply

  • 0
More on IPA

BJY Has Improved Rahul’s Image To The Congress Supporters But That Is Not Enough

February 4, 2023 4:27 pm | IPA Staff

By Harihar Swarup Since his 3,506-km Bharat Jodo Yatra ended on January 30 in Srinagar, it is time to assess its impact. Rahul Gandhi has...

IPA Special

China Reopening Changing Market Dynamics Impacting Importers

February 4, 2023 4:25 pm | IPA Staff

By K Raveendran With China slowly reopening after it abandoned the zero-Covid policy, global markets are bracing up for an industrial inflation, denoting higher industrial...

IPA Special

Union Budget 2023-24: Kerala Again Cold Shouldered

February 4, 2023 4:24 pm | IPA Staff

By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It has become a nauseatingly unredeemable tale of rejection and rebuff for Kerala. True to pattern, the State has once again...

IPA Special

2023-24 Budget Keeps Key Issues Of Indian Workers Unaddressed

February 4, 2023 4:23 pm | IPA Staff

By Dr K R Shyam Sundar The Economic Survey (ES) 2022-23 prepared the ground for the focus points in the Union Budget 2023-24 presented on...

IPA Special

BJY Has Improved Rahul’s Image To The Congress Supporters But That Is Not Enough

in IPA Special
Feb 4, 2023   ·  

China Reopening Changing Market Dynamics Impacting Importers

in IPA Special
Feb 4, 2023   ·  

Union Budget 2023-24: Kerala Again Cold Shouldered

in IPA Special
Feb 4, 2023   ·  

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Follow us on
Up Next: Brazil And Argentina Jointly Move To Develop A Common South American Currency
©2020 -2021 India Press Agency, All Rights Reserved
Newspack by India Press Agency
logo
  • Home
  • now
  • politics
  • business
  • markets