Amit Shah with Rajiv Pratap Rudy. Amit Shah with Rajiv Pratap Rudy.

Participation of Muslims in large numbers at BJP president Amit Shah’s rally here on Sunday is an encouraging sign for the saffron party in West Bengal, where votes from the minorities hold the key to forming a government.

Muslims who attended the rally complained that the Trinamool Congress government had let down the community as it did not fulfil its promises, and the BJP now appeared to them a viable option.

“We have been cheated so many times by so many political parties that we don’t believe anymore in what they said about the BJP. I am ready to test the BJP as well,” said 60-year-old Fazlur Rahman Mondal from Balurghat in South Dinajpore.

Safiqul Islam from Barasat in North 24 Parganas too said Muslims were misled by several political parties. “We have been brainwashed for too long. Now, we can see through what the previous ruling party had done and the present one is trying to do,” he said.

Some accused the Trinamool Congress of treating the community as a vote bank and favouring only influential Muslims. Md Alam from Mominpur, a Muslim-dominated locality in the city, said, “If one observed closely, one would see that the TMC was only handing over freebies to some of the influential Muslims and treating the rest of us only as vote bank.”

Rahidul Khan, Anarul Seikh and Mansad Khan, who belong to Saltola in Bankura, said they have defected from the TMC to the BJP because of internal clashes and bias in the Mamata Banerjee-led party. “We had to endure a lot of atrocities from our own party till we could not stand it,” said Rahidul. Anarul alleged:”In a housing project at our locality, those who already had homes were given homes, and we were deprived and homeless.”

“I defected because the TMC leaders there (in Bankura) are only busy filling their own pockets. They are not bothered about the people of the locality,” Mansad said.

In the rally, there were some like Mofizul Islam, who had initially started with the CPM, then moved the TMC and now has joined the BJP. “There is a lot of internal clash in the TMC at Arambagh which has made people very anti-Trinamool there. They are all looking for a change,” said Islam, a resident of Arambagh in Hooghly.

The recent clash in Makra village of Birbhum also appeared to a result of several Muslims shifting their allegiance from the Trinamool Congress to the BJP.

Danish Rahman from West Midnapore too thought the BJP deserved a chance. “We have been disappointed by the CPM and the TMC and have been fed by a lot of negativities by their leaders about the BJP. But, it cannot get any worse and so the BJP should be given a chance as well.”

A large number of Muslim women too participated in the rally. A Burdwan resident, Nargis Bibi, who came to the public meeting in burqa and naqab, said, “I have worked with the CPM. Although they promised a lot for the minority, they hardly delivered anything. This is what made me join the BJP.”

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