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Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
The Bhartiya Janata Party is leaving no stone unturned in wooing Muslims, who form about 20 percent of the 98.8 million electorate in Uttar Pradesh, where assembly polls are due later this month.
On Sunday, a few thousand Muslims became members of the BJP, and the party made a big show of it. The man behind the impressive display was state Housing and Urban Development Minister Lalji Tandon.
"As many as 2876 Muslims joined our party at a public function on Sunday evening," Tandon told rediff.com. And to convey Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's wishes on the occasion, there was his personal secretary Shiv Kumar, who had flown in from Delhi to attend the show.
Apparently, the party leadership is trying to make up for its failure to field more than one Muslim for the election to the 403-seat assembly.
Political observers also see the move as an attempt to divert attention from the Ayodhya issue, over which the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has been pressurising the government.
Tandon, who had earlier been responsible for resolving a several-year-old dispute between the Shia and Sunni sects, said: "We ensured a revival of their respective religious processions that had been banned under the Congress regime in the late seventies. Even Mulayam Singh Yadav, who proclaims himself to be the messiah of the Muslims, failed to take initiative while he was the chief minister."
Last month, the BJP government had, for the first time, started Haj flights from Lucknow, the minister said. "Why did the other governments not think about providing this facility?"
BJP's Muslim cell leader Tooraj Zaidi said: "Mulayam would always say that if the BJP came to power, one would not be able to breathe. Now tell me, the BJP has been here (in UP) as well as at the Centre for the past so many years. Have we harmed anyone?"
However, when asked why the party had fielded only one Muslim, Tandon pleaded: "Its not merely caste or creed that determines who gets the ticket. There are so many other factors."
The Bahujan Samaj Party has taken the lead in the race for wooing the Muslims in the state. As against its 86 Muslim candidates, the Congress has fielded 52, while the Samajwadi Party just 48.
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