Lucknow: Aiming to win all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP is sharpening its outreach among the backward Pasmanda Muslims, who have benefitted from government schemes like free ration and housing.
The BJP, which had held a state-level Pasmanda Muslim meet, is now planning to hold similar programmes in all civic body areas.
The Pasmanda community has 41 "castes", including Ansari, Qureshi, Mansoori, Salmani and Siddiqui. They are in professions such as butchers and weavers, and considered most backward in social, economic and political terms.
The party claims that it's working for the community's political uplift after their social and economic empowerment.
In Pasmanda Muslim meets, BJP leaders are highlighting that the SP, BSP and the Congress always used Muslims as a "vote bank" and did not give them their due.
Uttar Pradesh minister Danish Azad Ansari, who belongs to the community, told, "Central and state governments have worked for economic and social empowerment of Muslims so far. The BJP now wants political empowerment of Muslims by ensuring their participation."
The common Muslims are getting benefits of government schemes like free ration and housing without discrimination and it is their moral responsibility to stand with them, he said.