Making Friends With Muslims

A BJP convention for the state’s populous minority will ‘educate’ them on the party’s work

- Romita Datta

This has to be a first. The BJP is, believe it or not, out to woo West Bengal’s Muslims, who comprise a significant 30 per cent of the state’s electorate. Realising that attacking Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s “Muslim-appeasement politics” wasn’t getting the party adequate numbers of Hindu voters, the BJP has now decided to reach out to ‘liberal’ Muslims.

On February 19, the party’s state unit will host a state-level convention titled ‘Narendra Modi and Development of Minorities’ exclusively for Muslims. Invitations have gone out to Muslim intellectuals, professionals like doctors, lawyers and technocrats, and religious leaders, among others, to attend and get a ‘real feel of what the BJP means to do in Bengal’. Speakers will include former journalist and Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta, state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh and Trinamool Congress rebel leader Mukul Roy.