A BJP Minority Morcha rally, supporting the party’s candidate from Cooch Behar — Nisith Pramanik — chanted ‘Allahu Akbar’ slogans in West Bengal’s Dinhata on Thursday. The saffron camp’s approach, reaching out to the Muslims, caught everyone’s attention.
The rally was held with Muslims from two assembly constituencies, Sitai and Dinhata, said BJP’s Cooch Behar chief and MLA Sukumar Roy. “We will be holding a rally with Muslims from the entire district in Cooch Behar town soon,” Roy was quoted as saying by Times of India.
He however noted that such sloganeering was not surprising in this district, considering that the BJP had a Muslim panchayat samithi member from Bhetaguri.
Reportedly, a large number of Rajbanshi Muslims — hailing from North Bengal — especially from Cooch Behar’s Suktabari, had taken part in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in Siliguri earlier in March.
“The situation here is changing. People are now labelling TMC (Trinamool Congress) communal because the party always used Muslims as vote bank,” Roy was quoted as saying.
A couple of months ago, the Cooch Behar candidate — Nisith Pramanik — held a public meeting where women wearing burqa were seen chanting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” with the minister.
This rally comes a day after Abhijit Gangopadhyay, BJP’s Tamluk candidate, offered prayers at Gobind Jiu temple and laid a ‘chadar‘ at the Mahishadal Dargah in Mahishadal Rajbari during his campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Previously, PM Modi had asserted that women from the Muslim community would not vote for the Trinamool Congress due to the torture endured by the women of Sandeshkhali.
The saffron camp’s Bengal unit took inspiration from PM Modi’s speech and made sure to remove any anti-Muslim narrative from their election campaigns. They have made a point to maintain BJP’s support to the “Bharatiya Muslims”.
Comments
0 comment