BJP's Suvendu Adhikari Said ‘Jo Hamare Saath, Hum Unke Saath’. So What’s Wrong With That?

Bengal leader of opposition Suvendu Adhikari who rarely minces words, has stirred a political storm with his plainspeak that it is time to junk the ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’ line of thinking. 

At a meeting of party workers in Kolkata on Wednesday (17 July), Adhikari thundered: “We all used to raise the slogan sabka saath sabka vikaas. But I won’t say that any longer. What I’ll say is jo hamare saath, hum unke saath. Sabka saath sabka vikaas bandh karo”. 

Adhikari also said that there is no need for a minority forum within the party, adding that the poor performance of the BJP in Bengal in the recently-held Lok Sabha elections was due to lack of support for the party from Muslims & also due to Hindus being stopped from voting.

Draws Flak

Adhikari’s bold statement drew adverse reactions even from his own party. Union Minister for Power, Housing and Urban Affairs, Manohar Lal Khattar, who was present on the dais with Adhikari, contradicted the latter. 

Khattar, the former chief minister of Haryana, told party workers: “People from different identities are not our enemies. There are reasonable people in every segment of society and the popular mandate comes from everyone. A society cannot be divided on mandate. We have to take everyone with us”. 

Khattar added: “We fight our enemies at the borders, but not the people who are within the country. When it comes to the mandate of the people, we have to convince those with rational minds and take them along”. 

Junior Union Minister and state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar distanced the party from Adhikari’s statement. He said having a minority morcha at the state and central levels was part of the BJP’s policy. 

“Suvendu was a delegate at the party workers’ meet and made a proposal. It is up to the party president to accept the proposal or to reject it,” said Majumdar. 

Bengal BJP minority morcha head Charles Nandi disapproved of Adhikari’s statement. He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had coined the sabka saath, sabka vikas slogan and had also reached out to Pasmanda Muslims. 

However, a large number of BJP leaders, functionaries and workers, especially those at the middle and lower levels, welcomed Adhikari’s bold and unequivocal stand.

Is Adhikari Wrong?

Suvendu Adhikari actually said nothing wrong. Yes, he could have phrased it differently and not called for rejection of the sabka saath, sabka vikaas slogan that is directly associated with Prime Minister Modi. 

Maybe he ought to have phrased his call differently. Even limiting himself to the jo hamare saath, hum unka saath slogan would have been fine. 

But there is no escaping from the hard fact which he highlighted. Despite many efforts and a lot of mollycoddling, Muslims have firmly stayed away from the BJP. The handful of exceptions don’t really matter because they do not affect electoral outcomes. 

Even Modi’s efforts to reach out to Muslims, Pasmandas or others, have come a cropper. Muslims have decisively voted against the BJP and for parties which could defeat the BJP in their respective areas. 

There is no way that Muslims will ever vote for the BJP. Not as long as the party espouses Hindutva, takes up Hindu issues and causes, refuses to bend over backwards to appease Muslims, does not privilege Muslims over Hindus, and till BJP leaders and functionaries stop sporting tilaks and visiting temples. 

So Adhikari only took note of this hard fact about Muslims not supporting the BJP. And his jo hamare saath, hum unke saath statement is a logical corollary of the hard fact that Muslims will never vote for the BJP.  

Among the many who lauded Adhikari was former BJP state president Tathagata Roy who posted on X: “Not many in politics have the courage to say such truths out loud. Long live Subhendu Adhikari”. 

In another post, Roy, who served as the governor of Tripura and Meghalaya, addressed Adhikari directly: “Suvendu, what you said yesterday was the voice of countless BJP workers, including mine. Congratulations”. 

Roy, a highly respected figure in the party, spoke for a huge number of BJP leaders, functionaries and workers who strongly feel that the BJP should give up its futile quest to woo Muslims and ought to concentrate wholly on consolidating Hindus. 

A huge number of BJP leaders and workers from all over the state who had attended the party workers’ meeting on Wednesday told Swarajya that they were in total agreement with Adhikari.

What Adhikari said, they opined, was right and the party should now strive to stand firmly with Hindus of Bengal. “That does not mean we should be anti-Muslim. We should be neutral towards Muslims,” said a former state secretary who did not want to be named.

Not The First To Say It

Also, as many pointed out, Suvendu Adhikari is not the first to have spoken about Muslims not supporting the BJP. 

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has been saying this, and more, for quite a long time. Sarma has repeatedly said that he will not appeal to Assam’s Bengali-speaking Muslims (who are migrants or descendants of migrants — mostly illegal infiltrators — from East Bengal, East Pakistan or Bangladesh) to vote for the BJP because he knows that they will never vote for the BJP. 

Sarma has also been saying that he will not give the party ticket to any Bengali-speaking Muslim to contest any election in the state because there is no point in doing so — Muslims will never vote for such a candidate. 

Assamese-speaking or indigenous Muslims of Assam are, however, a different matter altogether. They distinguish themselves from the Bengali-speaking Muslims, don’t socialise much with them, and they vote for the BJP and its ally AGP (Asom Gana Parishad). 

The Assam Chief Minister has said that he, thus, will never appeal to Bengali-speaking Muslims for their votes. 

Union Minister Giriraj Singh had also said recently that Muslims, despite availing of benefits from the Union government like scholarships, doles, houses, water connections, etc, do not vote for the BJP. 

He added that though the government cannot and will not discriminate against Muslims in implementing schemes and projects, there is no point in expecting Muslims to vote for the BJP.

Expecting Too Much

Not just Prime Minister Modi, even the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) had reached out to Muslims and sought to woo them. But all efforts have been, and are destined to be, in vain. 

Adhikari merely articulated this stark reality. He said nothing wrong. It is high time that the BJP realises and accepts the ground reality and crafts a winning strategy that does not include Muslims. 

This is not to say that Muslims should be discriminated against and barred from availing of the benefits of various government welfare measures. Not at all. Doing so would be unconstitutional and unfair. 

But to expect that the labharthi (beneficiary) Muslims will vote for the BJP is expecting too much. Muslims will never vote for the BJP. 

And that leaves the BJP with only one option: to consolidate the Hindus and prevent opposition anti-Hindu parties from splitting Hindus along caste and other lines. 

Adhikari meant precisely this: that the BJP will stand strongly by Hindus because only Hindus vote for the BJP. There is nothing wrong with what he said. 

Every political party prioritises its own supporters over its opponents. The BJP should also do it, and unabashedly. The criticism of Adhikari’s statement from the so-called liberals should not bother the party. Because, once again, these so-called liberals will also never vote for the BJP.