‘We know they won’t vote for us’: Bengal BJP’s outreach drive to bypass Muslim pockets

By Express News Service
KOLKATA: Bengal BJP has decided not to carry out ‘Krishak Suraksha Abhiyan’, an outreach drive to woo the farmers in the upcoming Assembly elections, in minority-dominated pockets of the state. 

Though the party’s national leadership has set a target of 40,000 villages and asked the party workers to carry out door-to-door campaign under the banner of the new initiative, the saffron camp decided not to touch the areas where Muslim electorates are the deciding factor.

“We are calculating our vote share keeping aside the minority voters’ stake in Bengal’s electoral practice. We know they will not vote for the BJP. So there is no point of wasting energy and time to carry out the campaign in minority-dominated pockets,” said a senior BJP leader in Kolkata.

Muslim voters have a strong presence in Bengal and in at least 85 Assembly constituencies, they are the deciding factors as the minority community form 30 per cent of the total electorates. The Muslim community changed its political alignment in 2011 and voted en bloc in favour of the Trinamool Congress and since then, CM Mamata Banerjee has been enjoying their support.

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The BJP initiated the outreach drive in an attempt to blunt Mamata’s attack highlighting the saffron camp as an anti-farmer party. The party’s national president JP Nadda flagged off the outreach initiative last week by collecting fistfuls of rice from five farmer families in East Burdwan district, the area known as Bengal’s rice bowl.

West Bengal has 72 lakh farmer families who own farmland and directly depend on agriculture.

“As the central government ruled out repealing the farm laws, it is expected that Mamata Banerjee will sharpen attack on this issue ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections. We have been asked by the high-command to reach out to the farmers and convince them about the positive aspects of the Acts. In districts such as Hooghly, Howrah, South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, and Nadia, the number of minority farmers is considerable. But we will not reach out to them because they will not vote for us at any cost,” said another BJP leader.