BJP drops bid to woo Muslims

Party to launch campaign against job quota

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears to have bid good bye to the "Atal Himayat Committee" brand of politics, which was targeted at wooing "nationalist Muslims", after the 2004 elections debacle.

In its new "back to the basics" avatar, the BJP has decided to follow its sister organisation the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) in launching a protest campaign on the issue of job reservations for Muslims, announced by the Andhra Pradesh government. The VHP had announced a similar campaign on Friday.

The BJP took the decision today after a meeting of party officials at the residence of party president M Venkaiah Naidu. The new campaign will be launched on July 26 and has been called the "anti-appeasement" campaign.

"The AP government's move is anti-national. The BJP will be running an anti-appeasement campaign to protest against this reservation policy," said Naidu.

"The Andhra government's policy is dangerous, divisive and against the national interest. It is a trial balloon for the entire country and its repercussions are dangerous," said Naidu.

The campaign will comprise presenting memorandums to the district administration officials and governors about the policy.

While Naidu took the time out to distinguish between protesting against the reservation policy and not appearing "anti-Muslim", the new look BJP appears to be back on the well trodden Hindutva path.

Asked whether the party's opposition to reservation for Muslims indicated that its pre-poll "honeymoon" with the community was over, he said, "we are not against Muslims. We will continue to make efforts to win them over but we want them to come out of this vote bank politics."

He later clarified that his party was against reservation to Muslims on "religious" basis but was not against the inclusion of some sections in the minority community including weavers in the quota for OBCs or EBCs.

Forgotten phrases like pseudo secularism and "minority appeasement" are being brought back into the party vocabulary.

The party, it seems, has reconciled to the fact that Muslims are never going to vote for the BJP. After the polarisation of votes during the recent election, the BJP seems to have taken the advice of the RSS to heart, that it should continue to nurture its core Hindu vote bank.

"The reason our stalwarts lost in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar was because of this polarisation of votes," said a senior BJP leader.

This is not the first time that the BJP has followed the obvious lead provided by the Sangh Parivar. In the matter of the increase in foreign direct investment cap in the insurance and telecom sectors, the party followed the RSS point of view. Although former finance ministers in the NDA government had followed FDI-friendly policies.

What would be of interest, however, be the relation that the BJP is able to maintain with its comparatively secular partners like the Janata Dal (U) and the Telugu Desam Party.