Suvendu Adhikari, on Wednesday, while addressing a meeting with BJP leaders in Kolkata said that the minority morcha is needless and we should scrap it. To take this to another level, this statement is making rounds in the West Bengal media as it was also backed by another statement that hinted against the BJP’s notion of “Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Wishwa, Sabka Prayas” and so on…
To mention this literally, here is what Suvendu Adhikari said :
“I have spoken for nationalist Muslims as well. We all used to say ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’, but I would not say this anymore because I think it should be ‘jo humare saath, hum unke saath. There is no need for a minority morcha. Hindus were not allowed to cast their votes in the recently held Lok Sabha elections and in the assembly by-polls. The Hindi-speaking voters were not allowed to come out of their houses,”
What he meant by saying this has been an underlying sentiment of the BJP supporters on the national level post the lok-sabha elections where we could see trends on social media with the titles – Jiska Saath, Uska Vikas (meaning we will work for only those who support us)
Why this news has been on our blog post is the reason for us to understand – is he making any sense with these statements or is it just a political flame-throw?
Well, we tried to unfold and found out that scrapping the minority morcha will NOT benefit the BJP, neither in West Bengal nor in the whole nation. But, by minority here, we are referring to the actual minorities and not the second-largest majority in India or in West Bengal in that regard. This makes the latter statement irrelevant in terms of the Hindu-Muslim context that everybody wants to talk about.
Otherwise, when they say Jiska Sath, Uska Vikas, we don’t find an immoral sense in this thinking even if this is or is not true on the ground level. This Lok-sabha elections clearly indicated the strategic voting made against the government by the Muslim voters and if that fits in the legal course of democracy, why does it become wrong for the vote-seekers to politically ignore those who will not vote in their favour regardless of what benefits the government has provided to them. In short, we feel this stance is just a reaction of reaction, which might not suit the political correctness for some, but that’s not how the system of majority/democracy works.
Let us look at another example, when TMC said Will gouge out eyes, chop hands if it is challenged did we ask enough questions to strike this out? Forget condemning the statement, the post-poll violence of the 2021 assembly elections in West Bengal led to killings and destroyed the livelihoods of BJP supporters and it was forgotten/forgiven by the voters in the Lok-Sabha elections 2024. Is this fair enough? BJP did nothing for the lives lost, neither BJP WB nor Prime Minister Modi himself took any cognizance of this.
We are not suggesting a similar model by asserting this type of ideology but in reality, what will happen if the BJP starts ignoring the non-voters and work for people who actually vote to see them in power? We know, the BJP will fail terribly, and the reason is not democracy. The reason lies in low voter turnout for BJP.
Recently, we found out the percentage of votes that NOTA received is one of the highest in Indore, where there was no fight put up against BJP by the INDI Alliance and this skewed number is a clear indicator of the fact that WE DON’T WANT MODI. NO MATTER WHAT HE DOES FOR US. We believe that BJP has all the right to decide upon its next strategy.
While this has also opened up the door for conversations about whether the centre and the state committees are in sync or not for the BJP as we can also find a few things unravelling in UP. We will get back to that soon.
As of now, Suvendu Adhikari has clarified via X stating that – “My statement is being taken out of context. I am clear that those who are nationalists stand for this Nation and Bengal, and we should be with them. Those who don’t stand with us, work against the interest of the nation and Bengal, we need to expose them. Also, like Mamata Banerjee, we shouldn’t divide people into majority and minority and see them as Indians. I embody in letter and spirit, Prime Minister’s call for Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas, and Sabka Prayas”
Let us see how this turns out in the future. We will keep you posted. Stay tuned for more.
