By Sushil Kutty
The problem with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is that he thinks and dreams elections, only elections. Winning elections. And setting electoral records! Not that setting a record in elections has helped the people who voted the BJP, or helped those who did not vote the BJP. Like the Muslims of India, both ‘Pasmanda’ as well the ‘Ashrafi’.
To begin with, neither Muslim group trusted Modi. Very few Muslims gave away their votes to Modi’s party, the trust deficit going back to 2002, when Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi did not do his ‘Rajdharma’, not differentiate or discriminate between ‘subjects’.
Chief Minister Narendra Modi allegedly fell short of the ideal. Come 2014 and Chief Minister Narendra Modi became Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the strength of 31 percent of the Hindus voting for the BJP. Modi knew who stood by him, and who to stand with.
In 2014, the Muslim, Pasmanda or Ashrafi, neither mattered to the BJP so long as the Hindu delivered on their promise. Come 2019, and nearly 40 percent of the Hindus voted BJP. Modi got a record-setting majority of 301 Lok Sabha seats.
Now, 400 days to another general election, Modi has set the BJP the target of 400-plus Lok Sabha seats. Not that 400-plus will make a difference to the people. What Modi can hope to achieve with a 400-plus majority, he could have achieved with a 300-plus majority.
It is how he is going to set the new record that matters. The hat-trick! Another landslide in 2024. To that end, Modi has given a “clarion call” to BJP workers to reach out to Muslims, especially the Pasmanda among them.
The ‘Pasmanda’ make up 80-85 percent of the Muslims of India. If even half of them vote BJP, Modi will get his all-time electoral record. Modi has asked BJP workers in all parliamentary constituencies to reach across to Muslims and ensure government welfare schemes reach all Muslim households, but not in “exchange for votes”.
What’s that, “not in exchange for votes”? Fact is, till the last round of elections, Modi was going around bragging that his government’s welfare schemes were reaching 81 crore Indians of all castes and religions, wherever elections were being held.
Now, with elections in nine states in 2023, and the all-India elections in 2024, the ‘labarthi’ free rations scheme has been extended for another full year for 81 crore beneficiaries.
At the end of the day, pure and simple bribery. Proof that India has 81 crore poverty-stricken households. Modi was admitting to his government’s failures. A cover-up of electoral promises not delivered, like two crore jobs, etcetera, etc.
Modi’s blatant minority appeasement, an accusation that the BJP keeps hurling at the Congress all the time, has crossed all boundaries. “We should be in front of a church on Sunday… We should reach out to the Sikh community,” he told the BJP workers at the national executive. “Our objective to build the Ram temple in Ayodhya has been achieved… We should celebrate Ravidas Jayanti and Valmiki Jayanti… We should meet Pasmanda Muslims, (the) Bohra community.”
That covers all the “marginalized” and “oppressed” communities. Modi’s outreach will include “Muslim professionals and educated Muslims”. Tell them of the welfare work done for the Muslims. Modi called it ‘Bharose Ka Rishta’.
In the year when India has assumed the G20 presidency Modi wants no communal tensions to spoil the day for his government. Fellow G20 heads of state shouldn’t take home stories of communal disharmony in Modi’s ‘New India’.
The question boils down to have the Muslims come round to trusting Modi, and the BJP? Modi’s call to reach out to the Pasmanda Muslims comes on the heels of RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat asking Muslims to eschew any feelings of “supremacy”. Are Bhagwat and Modi at war?
Modi’s electoral compulsions have tamed him. As part of the BJP’s outreach to Pasmanda Muslims, Modi has advised BJP leaders and workers not to anger the Muslim community with “unnecessary remarks” on films. Political pundits are calling Modi’s Muslim outreach a “game-changer”, and a masterstroke, vis a vis the 2024 general elections.
The fact is, Modi is not sure where the votes for the BJP will come from. He has been reduced to playing his last hand. And that happens to be the “Muslim card”, which was always the ace in the hands of the “secular parties”. Modi’s “outreach” to Muslims is perhaps the last bluff! (IPA Service)
