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"Muslims haven't voted for the BJP", claims party after dissolving minority cells at every level

The BJP has repeatedly said in the election campaign that the people of the minority community are no longer afraid of the BJP, they have learned to vote for the BJP. However, after the announcement of the results, the party claimed directly based on the preliminary survey, saying “People from the Muslim community did not vote for the BJP candidates and this is one of the reasons for the party’s low seats.” With this argument, the state BJP has cancelled the minority cells at every level. On Wednesday, Rajdeep Roy, General Secretary of the party’s state committee and an MP from Silchar, issued a directive saying, “Every minority cell at the state, district and booth levels is being cancelled for the time being. The next decision will be taken by the party’s state president Ranjit Das.”

This decision has been supported by officials and leaders at almost every level of the party and they have expressed their feelings through various social media. Shiladitya Dev, a former MLA from Hojai and a controversial leader of the party, wrote on Facebook, “Our party has been working on the principle of ‘Sabka Saath-Sabka Bikash-Sabka Biswas’ from the very beginning. However, even though every community in the state has made equal progress in the last five years, our party has not been able to win the hearts of the Muslim community during the elections. It works when the mind cannot be conquered because, for the people of the Muslim community, religious identity is more important than social progress. The state committee of the party has taken the right decision to cancel the minority cells. I support them.”

The same was said recently at a press conference organized by the BJP in the Cachar district. The BJP president Bimalendu Roy, senior party leader Nitya Bhushan Dey and others were present at the event. They said, “In the last five years, the BJP government has launched several projects with the entire state for the betterment of the Barak Valley and everyone in the state has benefited from them. No people from any particular community were excluded from the benefits of government projects. However, people from the religious minority community have directly opposed the BJP in the elections. They voted against the BJP responsibly and in large numbers, which is why the party’s candidates in the Barak Valley have been defeated one by one. We could not have guessed that people of one community would vote this way only on the basis of religious identity. This time maybe we will change our plan a lot so that it will not happen in the future.”

They also added, “In areas where the number of minority voters is low, the BJP candidates have won easily and got good votes. Our preliminary survey has found that the people from the minority community voted more than 90 per cent in attendance. Those who were outside the Cachar district reached the area on or before election day and voted responsibly. Needless to say, they voted for the candidates of the Congress-AIUDF alliance. While the people of the Hindu community are indifferent in this matter, they did not care about voting for someone from their own community while going to poll. That is why the situation has come here today. The Muslim candidates have won six of the 15 seats in the Barak Valley, and none of them is from the BJP. If the people of the Hindu community still cannot predict the future, then they will have to suffer.”

This year, the BJP fielded minority candidates in several constituencies, including Aminul Haque Lashkar, but none of them won. However, one of the factors behind the defeat of Aminul Haque Laskar was the party’s Hindutva poster-boy Ashish Haldar. After not getting any ticket, he contested the election as an independent candidate and was able to get about 14,000 votes. Of course, this vote would have been in favour of the BJP if he had not contested. There are also allegations that the district BJP has shown indifference in campaigning in Borkhola and Katigorah constituencies. The Congress candidates managed to win both the seats and both are from the Muslim community. According to the experts, there are many other such factors that the party should look into.

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