Safiqul Islam thinks that Mamata is treating Muslims like milch cows and BJP can gain Muslim votes by reaching out to them I think his analysis is wrong, I have rebutted in the comment section, watch if u understand Bangla & read my comments if u do.
This is an important debate to be had & Safiqul is the smartest of the journalists we have around (all in MSM are dumbos). I will reproduce the gist of his observations and my rebuttal in 2 comments.
Safiqul’s analysis. TMC has won by virtue of Muslim votes but is not giving Muslims adequate representation in polity. Only 10% of its district level committees are Muslims, 2/18 of its RS members are Muslims, Christians have 1% vote and have 2 members.
TMC is using Muslims as milch cows, come election time it will raise specter of NRC & get Muslim votes en masse. Safiqul has spoken with many Muslims. A section will indeed blindly vote for TMC, but another section is disillusioned and wants another option.
The second section is saying who can we vote for, Cong & CPM have no org, BJP doesn’t even want our vote. Meanwhile TMC is seeking to increase its Hindu vote share through disbursement of patronage, its district committee members have relatives etc who would vote.
Safiqul brings up the Sabka Sath, Sabka Biswas narrative of Modi, his bonhomie with Muslims and asks if Modi can reach out to Muslims, why won’t WB BJP? Rational arguments but he misses key points which I have put in my rebuttal (comment section). Rebuttal reproduced below.
Let’s start with Modi. Modi has given a lot more benefits to Muslims than to Hindus. This is a fact. Provided by religious decomposition of beneficiaries of his welfare schemes. Yet, in LS BJP has got minimal Muslim vote share (CSDS survey of 2019 LS).
If Safiqul’s theory that Muslims would vote for WB BJP if only it reached out to them, they would already have voted for Modi by his argument.
Suvendu Adhikari’s evolution exactly shows us that Muslims will not vote for BJP no matter what. While in TMC he had a significant Muslim following and outreach. He had helped out many Muslims. When he joined BJP, initially he was hoping for Muslim votes.
His first speech at the occasion of his joining BJP had both namaskar & Salam, pretty much like his TMC days.The pattern continued 4 some time. Some of his speeches sought to assure minorities that they have nothing to worry as Modi has never discriminated. How did Muslims react?
Muslim women in his constituency gheraoed Suvendu’s car with jhantas (broom), men stoned his car, some of them probably benefited from him personally earlier. But those didn’t matter. Once he joined BJP he became Mir Zafar, enemy of their faith
I expect it became clear to him that he would not her any Muslim vote, including from those who benefited from him before, as a BJP candidate. He adapted and sought to consolidate Hindu votes. He would have lost Nandigram otherwise.
Suvendu is probably the only BJP leader, at least in WB, who is honest enough to acknowledge the obvious even post his election win. That only Sanatanis voted for him. What did he do to forfeit his Muslim following? Join BJP. That’s the extent of animosity.
Let us see the fate of BJP leaders who appealed 2 practitioners of all religions throughout VS 21. Rajib Banarjee. He was gheraoed, heckled during his campaign, he continued to appeal to “My Sankhalaghu brothers”. Result: Didnt get any Muslim vote, crashed to a humiliating defeat
Will a religion neutral campaign by any party get Muslim votes ? Let’s examine left. Left did appease Muslims during their rule in WB though not as blatantly as TMC. When Islamist mobs went on rampage against Taslima, left didn’t protect her. She was forced to leave Calcutta.
How would left Govt have reacted if Hindu mobs hit the streets on half as unreasonable as the Islamist demand for Taslima’s blood? It would have got its police to crush them. Point being left front also appeased Muslims, but did they get their votes ?
Fact: Muslims did not vote for left wherever they were in majority. Congress used to win central Bengal, Maldah & Murshidabad, throughout left regime. Cong was strong even in Khidirpur region of Calcutta.
So, a religion neutral campaign from any party will not get Muslim votes. Community specific advantages may get Muslim votes, But even that will not bring their votes to BJP in near future. If BJP takes that path, it would lose its Hindu votes.
Case in point; CAA. Muslims hit the street to oppose CAA. All that it was doing was promising citizenship to refugees of religious persecution from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan. So even such a humane law was opposed.
Last point. Mamata may not be giving representation to Muslims commensurate with their votes for her in polity, but she is still extending benefits preferentially. And that’s why Muslims are voting for her en masse.
Case in point. OBC reservation. Most of the groups selected as OBC by Mamata are Muslims. Hindu OBCs take a back seat. Accordingly, proportion of Muslims have significantly gone up in Govt jobs, police and those of Hindus have gone down.
Then when Mamata announces lockdown for Covid she carefully avoids days of Muslim worship or festivities but stops Hindu public worship on that count (Rathyatra, Kali Pujo and Jagadhatri Pujo bisorjon) etc.
Bottomline, its naieve to think that a simple religion neutral outreach would get BJP Muslim votes. It therefore has no choice but to consolidate Hindu votes.
There is a numerically insignificant component of Muslims who believe in religion neutral governance. Safiqul, Masum Akhtar et al. They should join BJP, contest polls and campaign on religion neutral governance and see how many Muslim votes they get.
And lastly I don’t see WB BJP promise any special scheme for Hindus. All they are doing is flagging the appeasement by Mamata. Why should that upset religion neutral votaries ?

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with শাশ্বতী সরকার Saswati Sarkar

শাশ্বতী সরকার Saswati Sarkar Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @sarkar_swati

16 Nov
Political scenario in US is changing in the reverse direction while @narendramodi is enacting woke agenda in US. As of now, a GoP wave seems to be engulfing US for 2022 midterm polls. Reliably blue Virginia just turned red, deep blue New Jersey remained blue by a whisker.
Biden-Harris approval ratings are under water. Biden is clocking 35%, Harris 27%, all time low for any US Vice-President. Liberal media is reporting GoP is 10 points ahead of Dems for midterm 2022. Things can of course change in a year, but these are the projections as of now.
2024 is far off, because politics changes rapidly. But as of now Trump is likely to run for Presidency in 2024. If he does he is a shoe-in for GoP nomination. But again that is a bit too far for the current projections to be reliable.
Read 4 tweets
16 Nov
Safiqul Islam is campaigning hard for WB BJP’s approach to be more “inclusive”. Yet another reportage today. And again misses key points. I have commented in YouTube comment section, but thread below:
Gist of Safiqul’s argument: In Bhopal Muslim women lined up to welcome PM in borkhas, if it is organized, why can’t BJP organize such shows in WB, why won’t BJP try in WB? Central BJP/RSS is appealing to all, why won’t WB BJP?
Modi will win in 2024, if so, BJP will again give a tough competition to TMC in 2026. If TMC gets 30% of votes from Muslims, it will surely win again because it needs only 15% from Hindus, how will BJP win WB ?
Read 7 tweets
15 Nov
Scams, Sexual Abuse, and Nepotism Exploding Within WB BJP. A 2019 report with painstaking details with names of whose who of legacy BJP-RSS in WB, Dilip Ji, Subroto Ji, Raju Banarjee, Kailash Vijaybargia, Shivprakash Menon. Tells us why WB BJP lost VS 21 peoplesreview.in/politics/2019/…
Rudro Barta implying that Begum has been successfully blackmailing top legacy leaders of WB BJP. Not the new recruits incidentally. The above lends credence to his allegation. BJP didn’t lose WB because of inducting candidates from outside, it lost because of its internal rot.
This also lends credence to Tathagata Ji’s allegations that money & women changed hands during VS 21. Those have been in Vogue long before VS 21. RSS is a den of vices.
Read 6 tweets
11 Nov
The Surajit Saha episode is revealing about 1) politics in Howrah 2) RSS 3) WB media. A thread:
First, some background for those not following the nitty-gritties of WB politics. Surajit Saha is the district president of Howrah BJP. Rathin Chakraborti is the son of Bhola Chakraborti, renowned doctor in Howrah &may be all of WB.Rathin, a doctor himself &former Mayor of Howrah
Rathin Chakraborti has a name recognition of his own in Howrah. He may not be financially clean himself, but no Mayor in WB is. He is not unusually corrupt. He moved to BJP before VS 21 contested VS polls from Howrah & lost.
Read 50 tweets
10 Nov
"শুভেন্দু অধিকারী একটা অকৃতজ্ঞ, বেইমান, জানোয়ার, বেজন্মা” -কুনাল ঘোষ Kunal uses filthy language on Suvendu.Why are they so obsessed with parentage?Their own, others? Had any WB BJP leader used half of these, choti chata media would have run it for a month
Only BJP leader Kunal seems to be deferential to is Dilip Ghosh. Rudro Barta seems to have noticed it too.
Literal translation of Kunal Ghosh’s oratory: Suvendu Adhikari is ungrateful, traitor, animal and a bastard. Clearly Kunal is doing this to please his supremo.
Read 4 tweets
10 Nov
May vote in the Municipality elections this time. If I do, I will vote for BJP. Primarily because of the risk a section has taken by flagging Hindu persecution in BD & more generally because of the Hindu line of that section.Despite my reservations against Modi & RSS.
After a few election cycles a party has given me a good reason to vote.
As far as I am concerned there is no honor in not voting due to intimidation by any one let alone Begum and her Dudhel Gais. A Bengali needs to take her honor seriously.Less than a century back we fought a far stronger force, British imperialists. Now, we would be afraid to vote?
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(