BJP mum on Khalid Anwar as JD (U) choice for council seat
2 min readPATNA: The state BJP on Monday neither reacted sharply to the Muslim clerics’ attack on the Narendra Modi government at the Centre at the massive ‘Deen Bachao Desh Bachao’ rally in Patna on Sunday nor commented on the choice of Khalid Anwar as the JD(U) nominee for the legislative council seat in Bihar. Anwar himself said he had joined the JD((U) hardly two months back, but believed in CM Nitish Kumar’s ideology since long.
Anwar was among the prominent organizers of the Sunday rally organized under the aegis of the Emarat-e-Sharia (Phulwarisharif), which is the prominent religious body of Muslims in Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal.
A senior BJP minister in the Nitish government said, “The matter is not important for us here in the state. The party’s central leadership will take it up, if necessary.”
He further said, “What the Muslim clerics said was apolitical. The fielding of Anwar as the JD(U) candidate by Nitish for the council seat is political.”
Former MLA and state BJP spokesman Prem Ranjan Patel said the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill was an appreciable step taken by the Centre and has been welcomed by Muslim women.
Addressing the rally, Emarat-e-Sharia chief Maulana Wali Rahmani had pointed out that the Muslim personal laws were under attack by the central government led by PM Modi. Rahmani, the general secretary of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, also said, “We waited for four years, expecting that the BJP will learn to run the nation as per the Constitution. But we were wrong — take for instance Muslim personal laws which are under attack. We are compelled to inform you our countrymen that Islam and our country is in danger under the present government,” Rahmani said, adding the Modi government at the Centre was “RSS-controlled”.
Curiously, Emarat-e-Sharia, formed in 1921 by Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, is deemed to be close to the Congress and the RJD, while Nitish has been trying to extricate Muslims from the “RJD hold”.
The BJP minister admitted that Muslims have been strongly inclined towards the RJD and Nitish has been trying to woo them away from it or trying to split its loyalties. “Sometimes he succeeds. On other occasions, he fails,” he said.
Courtesy: TNN
