BJP may field minority candidates in Gujarat Assembly polls after municipal wins

With a record 82 Muslim candidates winning the recently-held municipal elections across 66 municipalities on BJP tickets in Gujarat, the party may now be looking to field the minority candidates in the assembly elections, breaking away from its tradition of not fielding any minority candidate in the state.

"The results have shown it clearly that the minority population is now firmly with BJP, in spite of all the hoopla around Uniform Civil Code, triple talaq and Waqf that the Opposition has been trying to storm up," said Yagnesh Dave, coordinator of Gujarat BJP media cell.

Given the current show, things may just change in the future for the minority community in the BJP. "Yes, the party may field Muslim candidates in the seats where the demography makes one winnable. There are a few seats where Muslim candidates may be fielded in future," Dave told ET.


Dave may have reason to sound the way he does as 21 out of 210 candidates, who had won unopposed were Muslim candidates from the BJP. "We had given tickets to around 130 Muslim candidates and 82 candidates in total have romped home," he said.

BJP's Muslim outreach in Gujarat had started right after the 2007 Gujarat election as the party was working at a major image overhaul, and by 2008, Muslim candidates were being fielded in the civic body polls.

The possibility of BJP fielding Muslim candidate in the assembly elections, however, may come at a major political cost for the Opposition Congress. The party has been decimated to its all-time low figure of 17 in 2022 elections which further came down to 12 over the last two years with Imran Khedawala being the lone Muslim MLA from the party.