BJP Minority Morcha chief slams Suvendu Adhikari: ‘New to party, not in contact with ground’

Addressing a BJP West Bengal executive committee meeting Wednesday, Adhikari, who has been under pressure over the party’s string of poor poll performances, said that Muslims do not vote for the BJP and that, instead of following ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’, the party should now say: “We are with those who are with us.” Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, also said the BJP should shut down its Minority Morcha.

Adhikari later clarified that he was “quoted out of context”, and that he “embodied in letter and spirit Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas”.

Siddiqui said Adhikari may have said this out of frustration over people not voting for the BJP and over power remaining elusive. “But the BJP never works for power; we work for society as a whole. BJP workers never work on the basis of who votes for the party or who doesn’t. We will serve all people; that is our duty.”

The Minority Morcha chief added: “I believe that Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas is the soul of the BJP. A body becomes useless if the soul is separated from it. The BJP was founded for Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. Our final goal is sewa (service) and not satta (power). If we get power, we can better engage in service. The Prime Minister has always said that we must work for even those who don’t vote for us. This is the Antyodaya of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya.”

For the country to develop, Siddiqui added, “Every person within it has to get the fruits of development and to feel safe.”

Over the BJP’s failure to reach a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha polls, Siddiqui said it was a pity that the Opposition’s “propaganda” that the BJP would change the Constitution “succeeded in leading Muslims astray”. “During the elections, the statements of the PM and our leaders were twisted. This spread hatred. PM Narendra Modi said that the day he does ‘Hindu-Muslim politics’, he won’t be in politics. He meets Sufis and sends a chaadar every year to Ajmer Sharif,” he said.

On BJP leaders attacking the minority community as “ghuspaithiye (infiltrators)”, Siddiqui said Modi doesn’t mean Muslims by this. “Muslims are honored citizens of this country. They have been used by the Opposition. Each scheme of the government has helped Muslims. Our Muslim brothers should realise that they should stand with those who work for the nation’s development.”

On the Opposition’s promises to the minorities, Siddiqui said: “Medicine is bitter, and jalebi is sweet. But for good health, medicine is necessary.”

The BJP had set up its Minority Morcha soon after it was founded in 1980, as a means of reaching out to the Muslim community and convincing them about its ideology. However, since the BJP’s association with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, the Morcha, with around 42,000 office-bearers across the country, has failed to make much headway.

Listing the work they have been doing, Siddiqui said the Morcha had given away 22-lakh ‘Modi Mitra (Friends of Modi)’ certificates to people and made them ambassadors to take awareness of the PM’s schemes to the Muslim community; is in touch with people associated with the Sufism stream of though across the country, and has opened channels of communication with 14,000 Sufi centres to remove the community’s misgivings regarding the BJP; and made a special outreach towards the Pasmanda Muslims, who are the most backward in the community.

A Morcha member said it also has members in Jammu and Kashmir, and that some of them had fallen to militant bullets. “People may join and leave the party. But Minority Morcha office-bearers have generally been loyal, as we are committed to nationalism and Antyodaya,” the member said.