BJP tries to expand footprint in Poonch, Rajouri districts

JAMMU: To expand its footprints in the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri, the BJP is all out to “lure” prominent Muslim faces of the belt to achieve the target of emerging as the single largest party in the forthcoming Assembly polls.

Iqbal Malik

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, July 7

To expand its footprints in the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri, the BJP is all out to “lure” prominent Muslim faces of the belt to achieve the target of emerging as the single largest party in the forthcoming Assembly polls.

Iqbal Malik, eminent Pahari leader and Congress stalwart, is going to join the BJP on Monday. Another woman Muslim face, Shehnaz Ganai, former MLC who had resigned from the National Conference on Saturday, is also likely to join the saffron party. Ganai, who hails from border Poonch district, announced her disassociation with the NC late on Saturday.

As Malik has a strong base among Pahari Muslims of Poonch and Rajouri, BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav is especially coming to Jammu on Monday to induct him into the party.

Once a close confidant of PDP founder Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, former bureaucrat Malik had contested the 2008 Assembly elections as an Independent candidate from the Darhal segment and secured over 15,000 votes. In the 2014 Assembly polls, Malik was a Congress candidate on the same seat and had lost to PDP stalwart Choudhary Zulfikar.

Malik resigned from the Congress on Sunday and charged party leadership with creating factionalism. “I will take decision on the future course of action on Monday,” Malik told The Tribune.

Sources in the BJP said Malik was in touch with the top leadership of the party for the last one week and would join the party on Monday in Madhav’s presence.

“In the recently held Lok Sabha elections, the party had failed to get even respectable votes in the five Muslim-dominated Assembly segments of Poonch and Rajouri, so the party leadership has decided to rope in prominent Muslim faces of this belt before the Assembly polls,” a top BJP leader told The Tribune, adding, “We are also in touch with some other prominent Muslim leaders.”

In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had secured only 10,360 votes as compared to Congress’ 54,319. Similarly, the party had performed badly in the Muslim-dominated Surakote, Haveli, Mendhar and Rajouri Assembly segments.

The sources said the BJP leadership had devised a strategy to rope in prominent Muslim faces, so as to field winnable candidates in all 37 Assembly segments of Jammu province. In the 2014 Assembly polls, Abdul Gani Kohli was the only Muslim candidate who had won the election on the BJP mandate from the Kalakote Assembly segment where Hindus have 65 per cent share of the total votes. The party had fielded a prominent Gujjar leader, Talib Hussain, from Rajouri but he lost elections by a narrow margin.

Switchover from Cong

As Iqbal Malik, eminent Pahari leader and Congress stalwart, has a strong base among Pahari Muslims of Poonch and Rajouri, BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav is especially coming to Jammu on Monday to induct him into the party
Another Muslim face, Shehnaz Ganai, former MLC who had resigned from the National Conference on Saturday, is also likely to join the saffron party. Ganai hails from Poonch district