NEW DELHI: Months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi advocated socio-economic and political uplift of Pasmanda Muslims at his party’s national executive meeting, the BJP is now learnt to have started making a new ‘electoral experiment’ with this section of the community with an intent to create a Muslim vote bank for the future. The Pasamanda Muslims, according to a rough estimate constitute around 70-80% of India’s Muslim population (19.50 crore).
The party is organising conferences to win the community over by its policies and government welfare schemes launched for their socio-economic uplift. The first conference of Pasamanda Muslims was organised in Lucknow on October 16 this year, followed by six other places by the BJP’s OBC and the Minority Morcha (fronts).
So far, six other mega conferences for the communtiy have been organised. UP has the highest number of Pasamanda Muslims, accounting for around 3.5 crore of the population, while Bihar has approximately 1.5 crore such Muslims.
Sources say that the BJP is attempting to bring a larger chunk of the communities, especially those whose ancestors had once converted to Islam from various Hindu castes into the existing OBCs, the SCs and the STs into the fold of party’s votebank. “If the Saffron party succeeds in creating this new electoral equation with Pasamanda Muslim communities along with the OBC, SC and ST vote banks, the party will remain in power at the Centre for the next 50 years,” said a senior party leader.
Pasmanda is a Persian word that means the ‘ones left behind’. The word is used to describe the depressed classes among Muslims who have been deliberately or consciously excluded from the fruits of power and privilege.
Sachar Committee said OBC and SC/ST Muslims were 40% of India’s overall Muslim population in 2004-05. But Pasmanda activists and scholars say they make up 80-85% of India’s Muslim population that is around 19-20crore
Their voting percentage has always been registered more than 70% in every election
Backward, Dalit, and tribal Muslims use the word Pasmanda as an umbrella identity to flag caste-based discrimination within the community.
In UP, the population of Pasmanda Muslims is around 3.5 crore — highest in the country. In Bihar, it is around 1.5 crore
In country’s 18 states including Karnataka, Kerala MP, UP, Bihar and Jharkhand, the Pasmanda Muslims play a very decisive role in the elections, determining the results in a number of constituencies
