Uttar Pradesh: Eyeing 2024 Lok Sabha polls BJP to woo Muslims in local bodies elections

Uttar Pradesh: Eyeing 2024 Lok Sabha polls BJP to woo Muslims in local bodies elections

The party has planned to spread its wings in the Muslim-dominated areas of UP and forthcoming local bodies elections would see a new strategy from the saffron fold.

Rashmi SharmaUpdated: Friday, October 07, 2022, 08:20 PM IST
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Lucknow: Invincible for the last three elections in Uttar Pradesh, the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) might change its strategy in the state for the 2024 parliament elections. Aiming to win all the 80 parliamentary seats of UP in 2024, BJP has decided to focus on the minority-dominated areas this time where it could never taste success in the past. The party has planned to spread its wings in the Muslim-dominated areas of UP and forthcoming local bodies elections would see a new strategy from the saffron fold.

After a long time, BJP would contest local bodies’ elections in the Muslim-dominated areas where it used to avoid contesting in the past. The party would field candidates on its symbol in the urban local bodies elections scheduled to be held in November this year. The Minority Cell of BJP has started preparations in this regard.

The Minority Cell of BJP has started a series of meetings across the state and finalizing candidates for the local bodies polls. The party is taking local body polls as a warm up exercise before the 2024 general elections. According to the senior BJP leaders the party might field at least 50 to 60 candidates in the coming local body elections from Muslim community.

It may be mentioned that in the 2014 and 2019 parliament and 2017 & 2022 assembly polls, BJP did not field any Muslim candidate in UP on its symbol. The president of the BJP Minority Front, Kunwar Basit Ali has identified 1200 wards in the urban local bodies in UP which have good number of Muslim votes. Besides, there are 50 to 60 seats of Nagar Panchayats where BJP never contested due to the dominance of Muslim votes. This time the party would field its candidates on all these seats. The party has identified leaders of the minority front and social activists from Muslim community who could be given a ticket on these seats.

The state president of BJP, Bhupendra Choudhury has made it clear that the party would contest all the seats in local body polls this time. He said that Muslim community has been the major beneficiary of the welfare schemes launched by the BJP hence, it would support party candidates in coming elections. For the 2024 parliament elections, BJP has set a target of winning all 80 seats in UP. The recent win of its candidate in the Rampur parliamentary seat by-poll has enthused the leaders where Muslim votes are nearly 50 per cent. For the 2024 parliament elections, BJP would focus on minority dominated seats of Behraich, Rampur, Saharanpur, Moradabad, Bijnore, Muzaffarnagar, Shrawasti, Sambhal and Amroha where the percentage of Muslim votes range from 25 to 40.

According to a senior BJP leader, 85 per cent of the Muslim population in UP hails from the backward class and the party has targeted them. The lone Muslim minister in Yogi Cabinet, Danish Azad Ansari is from backward community. The party has launched various welfare schemes for the backward Muslim community in the recent past.

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