When the names of 22 candidates were announced by the BJP for the Rajya Sabha elections to be held on June 10, it became clear that now no Muslim face will be seen from the BJP side in the Rajya Sabha as well as in the Lok Sabha. There is no Muslim face in the BJP’s list of 22 candidates for the Upper House. Elections are going to be held on June 10 for a total of 57 Rajya Sabha seats in 15 states. The last date for nomination is 31st May i.e. today. This time the leaves of many veterans have been cut from BJP.
BJP does not already have a Muslim MP in the Lok Sabha. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP had fielded six Muslim candidates. But they were all defeated. The NDA has only one Muslim MP Mehboob Ali from Khagaria. In 2019, he came from Bihar by winning on LJP ticket.
Talking about the Rajya Sabha, there were three Muslim MPs in the Rajya Sabha from the BJP. Among them are Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, party spokesperson Syed Zafar Islam and MJ Akbar. The term of all three is coming to an end. BJP has cut the cards of all three. Looking at the BJP’s list, it is clear that now no Muslim face is going to go to the Rajya Sabha from their side.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi’s Rajya Sabha term ends on July 7. If he does not become an MP in six months, then his ministerial post will also go away. By the way, it is believed that he will be made a BJP candidate in the Rampur Lok Sabha by-election of UP. The term of Zafar Islam ends on July 4 and that of MJ Akbar on June 29. While once a veteran journalist MJ Akbar became a victim of the MeToo campaign, the BJP did not give a Rajya Sabha ticket to Zafar Islam this time and made it clear that it is not inclined to send any Muslim to the upper house. However, seven seats in the Rajya Sabha to be nominated by the President are vacant. But BJP will give place to a Muslim in them, only time can tell.
The game of not giving attention to Muslim leaders in BJP was visible as soon as the Modi era started. Muslims constitute about 15 per cent of the population in Uttar Pradesh. But for the first time since independence, this happened in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when not a single Muslim MP was elected from Uttar Pradesh. At that time, not a single Muslim MP was elected despite the BJP not fielding a Muslim candidate. The main reason for this was the split of vote bank between SP, BSP and Congress. In 2019, six Muslim MPs from UP reached the Lok Sabha from UP but all of them were elected on the ticket of opposition parties Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.