Keeping up with UP: How BJP won Muslim majority seats in bypolls

BJP won Muslim dominated constituencies in Assam and UP bypolls -was it an aberration or experiment?

- Sunita Aron

Yogi Adityanath and Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Assam, who have a penchant for delivering polarising speeches and slogans are key leaders for the party in the North and the Northeast.

But the recent bypoll results took all by surprise. Amid BJP's push on the Waqf Bill to change the laws governing Muslim endowments and madrasa reforms, it won the bypolls in Muslim majority constituencies of Kundarki in West UP and Samaguri in Assam in November.

Were these wins just an aberration or an experiment in the two states with a sizeable Muslim population? Muslims account for about 20% of UP's population with a concentration in western and central UP and account for 34% in Assam. Muslims form 60% of Kundarki's population and 56% in Samaguri.

Yogi, who faced much flak after the party's poor performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, had called for a 100% strike rate -- 9/9 in the bypolls. They won seven seats but Kundarki was a surprise.

Even BJP leaders say they are still trying to fathom how they got Muslim votes, that too in bulk. Their argument is that their candidate polled 170,371 votes as compared to 25,580 votes going to the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate. Politically, the explanation is that the Muslim votes were divided with the upper caste Muslim votes (Turks), a business community, voting for the BJP. They bought security for themselves. Second, the Hindu votes consolidated in the wake of the "Batenge toh kat enge" slogan.

In Assam, Sarma described the win as a milestone in state politics and gave credit to welfare schemes. Now, he said, the BJP will focus on six Muslim majority seats. What he did not say was the role played by two Muslim leaders who had moved from Congress to the BJP and strategised the elections. Interestingly, a Hindu won the seat, a rare phenomenon.