UP Assembly election: BSP, SP to counter BJP’s strategy to win over Muslim votes

Ravi S Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 29

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh have independently decided to counter Bharatitya Janata Party’s moves to win over Muslim voters with an eye on the crucial upcoming Assembly poll in the State.

The election will be held in February-March next year.

“The BJP has lost ground in Uttar Pradesh due to mishandling of Covid pandemic. Hence, it is trying to impress Muslim voters, which BSP will counter,” a top BSP leader told TNS.

Sources say Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—the fountainhead of “Sangh Parivar”—has greenlighted to the BJP on meaningful inclusion of Muslims in its political calculus apropos of the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Top RSS functionaries had discussed the issue during their five-day meet at Chitrakoot in Madhya Pradesh held in the second week of July. It was attended by its head, Mohan Bhagwat.

An internal assessment in a section of the BJP is that the party’s popularity has plummeted by about 10-12 per cent of the votes it polled in the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, even though the BJP leaders will not verify this officially for obvious reasons. This putative erosion of votes may benefit the BSP and the SP, which are the other dominant players in Uttar Pradesh politics and strong symbols against the BJP.

The assessment, however, is also that the decimation in the vote bank would not affect the BJP’s prospects of winning the elections, but the Muslim minority should not be left behind. The party believes it should favourably involve them in its programmatic and electoral calisthenics.

Sources further said that the section in the BJP that’s pushing for the inclusion of Muslims wants at least 10-12 Muslims candidates to be given tickets for the coming assembly elections. Their view is said to be gaining currency in the BJP with 20/20 hindsight of the results of the last West Bengal assembly elections.

Varying estimates project Muslims constituting 18-20 per cent of voters in UP. They are a determining factor in about 70 out of the total of 403 assembly seats in the State

BSP and the SP are alarmed at BJP plans to zero in on socially and economically backward sections in Muslim demography.