BETTIAH: On Sunday before last, BJP’s incumbent MP from Paschim Champaran, Sanjay Jaiswal, was attacked at Shekhauna in the Narkatia assembly segment. “I would have been lynched had my bodyguards not fired in the air,” Jaiswal had told this newspaper. “Hindu voters were brutally assaulted in this Muslim dominated village...I had gone to protest before polling officers,” he had said. “See my track record. I’ve never turned away Muslims seeking my help...but neither will I tolerate intimidation and assault of Hindu voters,” Jaiswal had then said.

On Thursday, as Jaiswal registered his hat-trick victory, he gushed: “I have led by 30 votes in the same village.... This clearly shows that Muslims too have voted for Modi ji...It is a vindication of our ‘sab ka saath...’ credo.”

As Jaiswal’s lead was peaking to his eventual 2.93 lakh victory margin, Shashi Bhushan Kumar — an exit pollster with Cicero — shared his findings with this reporter. “We interviewed a large number of voters coming out from the polling booths...many of the women we talked to were Muslim,” Kumar recounted his encounters outside polling booths across 14 districts in Bihar . “A significant section of women Muslim voters voted for the BJP,” he recalled.

“The results confirm what we found out,” he said, explaining that his team spoke with women voters separately. “Even where couples came out after voting, we persuaded the husbands to let us speak to their spouses alone,” he said, sharing the revelation, “We found that many Muslim women had voted for the Lotus.”

The exit-pollster said: “Many of the Muslim women who voted for BJP said they were swayed by PM Modi’s stand on triple talaq. Women who had suffered divorce themselves or whose dear ones had to undergo the ignominy of triple talaq , were unequivocally clear on their choice,” he said, adding that the PM’s reach went beyond this. “The Ujjwala and toilet schemes too swung women voters towards Modi ji,” he said.

“My 30-vote lead in a hostile Muslim village is not an aberration. Our schemes for women like the Ujjwala, apart from the triple talaq issue, have been a game changer,” Jaiswal said.

