Former U.P. minister Anees Mansoori on Monday said the BJP should take religious leaders of all communities into confidence before deciding on the issue of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC).
“UCC is for all, not Muslims alone and hence the government needs to take everyone into confidence on the issue. I am sure this is the best way to win trust of the community leaders on the subject or else it will appear like a move thrust on the people,” Mansoori, a Pasmanda Muslim who heads an organisation named ‘Pasmanda Muslim Samaj’, said at a press conference on Monday.
The UCC issue gained momentum after PM Modi touched upon it while answering a query from a BJP woman from Lucknow on June 27 during party’s booth level campaign. Ever since, many political parties have cleared their stand on the subject with the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party indicating they weren’t averse to the move.
“Pasmanda Muslims are not averse to the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls provided it does something concrete for the community. So far, all that the community has got is lip service made through handful of Muslim leaders in the BJP,” Mansoori said.
{{/usCountry}}“Pasmanda Muslims are not averse to the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls provided it does something concrete for the community. So far, all that the community has got is lip service made through handful of Muslim leaders in the BJP,” Mansoori said.
{{/usCountry}}“See there are two issues that are under discussion. On July 3 2022, the PM during a BJP meeting in Hyderabad, had first touched upon the issue of Pasmanda Muslims and the need to build trust among them through initiatives like ‘sneh yatras’. In Bhopal only last week, Modi ji listed many Pasmanda castes. The point is that while all good things are being said little is happening on the ground,” Mansoori said.
He said, “For the last six years, we have been writing to various leaders on the need to better the standards of backward Muslims. I had met many senior BJP leaders on the issue but until the government comes up with a roadmap for any meaningful benefit to the community, little is going to happen.”
Mansoori’s statement comes amid a fresh BJP bid to connect with Pasmanda Muslims, especially in Uttar Pradesh where a vast majority of 19 per cent Muslims is Pasmandas.
The BJP is also making ‘Modi Mitras (friends of Modi)’ among the Muslims, a move that got wings since June 2022 when the party began winning Muslim dominated constituencies in the bypolls. The BJP attributes all of this to delivery of welfare and pro-poor schemes to the poorest of the poor Muslims.