By Kavita Mistry 
Thiruvananthapuram: With two crucial elections round the corner, the Kerala BJP unit on Friday announced a mass Muslim outreach programme in the southern state. Kerala BJP president Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the programme will be spearheaded by the party’s Muslim members, including Vice President Dr M. Abdul Salam and other members from the community. Salam was BJP’s lone Muslim candidate in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Chandrasekhar said the team will visit households of Muslim families to explain the party’s developmental vision for the state that includes everyone irrespective of religion. He said it’s also an attempt to break the party’s image as an anti-Muslim party.
“The vision the Narendra Modi government put forward was Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. But here, CPI(M) and Congress have put poison in minorities’ minds. The programme will be rolled out to show the truth that we will work with everyone, whoever it is, and whatever their problems are. There is no politics in it, and it’s not for votes,” Chandrasekhar said, adding that the programme was only a sincere attempt to build trust. Chandrasekhar said the team will visit all Muslim houses and explain the party’s vision of ‘Viksit Kerala’ for all.
The BJP, which doesn’t have an MLA in Kerala, is starting the programme just as the state is headed for local body polls in a month. Assembly elections are slated soon after.
The strategy comes into play after a similar outreach with personal visits to Christian homes brought in a significant share of the community’s votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The party also won its first Lok Sabha seat from Thrissur (in 2024), when Suresh Gopi won. Thrissur has a significant Christian population.
The BJP had secured 16.68 percent vote share in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, up from 13 per ent in 2019. In the 2021 Assembly polls, the share was 11.3 percent. The party, led by technocrat Rajeev Chandrasekhar since March this year, has been mostly involved in a campaign focused on development and promoting central government schemes.
As per the 2011 census, Kerala has a 54.7 percent Hindu population, followed by Muslims (26.6 percent) and Christians (18.4 percent). The party had carried out an outreach programme on Eid in 2023, with workers visiting Muslim households.
Talking to ThePrint, Kerala BJP leader Jiji Joseph said the initiative aims to overcome the party being labelled anti-Muslim in the state. He said many Muslim community members are joining the party lately and that the party has always reached out to all communities under all leaderships. He said the party, which is increasing its vote share gradually, is hopeful to make big gains in the upcoming polls. “BJP has now become a party that wins.”
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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