Eight leaders from the state find representation in the organisational reshuffle announced by party president Nitin Nabin on Monday. With Uttar Pradesh headed for assembly polls early next year, the BJP’s new national team appears to have been formed to strike a balance between caste, community, region, religion and gender.
Significantly, Uttar Pradesh is the only state to have Muslim representatives in the new national team. Tariq Mansoor, Member of Legislative Council and former Aligarh Muslim University vice chancellor, has been retained as national vice-president. Kunwar Basit Ali has been elevated as Minority Morcha national president. The induction of two faces from the Pasmanda community is being seen as part of the BJP’s outreach to Pasmanda Muslims as well as a bid to make a dent in the Samajwadi Party’s votebank. Kunwar Basit Ali from Meerut was the state president of the Minority Morcha till recently. Talking to the HT over phone, both leaders showed their gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top party leaders for their appointment to the national team and expressed their resolve to connect Muslims to the BJP. “The BJP is no longer untouchable to Muslims as amply demonstrated by the recent assembly elections in West Bengal. The three women faces include former Union minister Smriti Irani who has been appointed national general secretary.
Mansoor, who joined the BJP after completing his tenure at AMU in 2023, has emerged as one of the party’s prominent Muslim faces in western UP. She defeated Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from Amethi Lok Sabha seat in 2019 but lost to the Congress’s Kishori Lal Sharma in 2024. Because the Modi government’s welfare schemes have benefited all without any discrimination and in many cases they have benefited Muslims more than others,” Tariq Mansoor said, this is.
Shashi Kant Pandey, a political scientist, said the BJP has recently been trying hard to woo Pasmanda Muslims and the induction of two Muslim faces, both from western UP with a dense Muslim population, is definitely an attempt to deepen its outreach in the community, particularly Pasmanda Muslims. He also said he would take the Modi and Yogi governments’ policies to Muslims.
“Studies suggest that Pasmanda Muslims are favourably inclined to the BJP in UP,” Pandey stated. He said by giving representation to two Muslims from UP in the national list, the BJP also sought to counter the SP’s bid to make a dent in its Brahmin vote bank.
