The RJD, feeling marginalised after the ruling JD(U) seemingly improved its pro-Muslim image and the BJP emerged as Bihar’s main Opposition party, on Thursday deliberated on strategies to increase its Muslim votebank and taunted chief minister Nitish Kumar as a “new Muslim” bent on deceiving the minorities.
At the first convention in Patna, RJD’s Muslim leaders assembled from across Bihar, the party’s senior leaders from the minority community lambasted both the JD(U) and the BJP as hostile towards the interests of the minorities. With an eye on the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the Bihar Assembly polls in 2015, the leaders exhorted Bihar’s Muslims not to be confused by either political propaganda or promises made by the two former NDA allies.
“Today’s new Muslim, chief minister Nitish Kumar, is one of a few who is eating too much onion,” said senior RJD leader and former Leader of Opposition in Assembly Abdul Bari Siddiqui, alluding to a popular saying in Hindi. “They (JD-U) broke with the BJP not because of any ideological differences but purely for their clash of interests. The JD(U) and the CM have been too close to the RSS and VHP to be able to fool the Muslims this time,” he told journalists.
M.A.A. Fatmi, former Union minister and head of the RJD minority wing, said the rise of Narendra Modi within the BJP and tensions across north India have begun to echo in Bihar in the form of communal tension. “We are watching the socio-political landscape carefully and resist all efforts to sow confusion in the minds of Bihar’s Muslims. A secular government is going to be formed at the Centre after the 2014 LS polls and then a secular government will assume power in Bihar in 2015,” he said.
The RJD leaders chalked out an elaborate programme of holding meetings at Muslim-dominated areas across Bihar.