Meerut: Thousands of people from the Muslim community, some of them part of a motorcycle rally, on Sunday attended the election meeting addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here, BJP's minority wing office-bearers said.
"A little over 10,000 Muslims attended the election rally. Most of them came from Meerut district," said Javed Malik, president of Minority Morcha of UP BJP's western unit. "There is a craze among people regarding Modi ji. People who got benefits of the Centre's various schemes came here to listen to him. Those who have seen the works of Modi ji and Yogi (Adityanath) ji, and those who wanted to see Modi ji came here," Malik told PTI here.
Sameer Khan, in-charge of Minority Morcha of UP BJP for Meerut Lok Sabha seat, who also attended the rally, said that a motorcycle march was taken out from Gandhibagh to the rally venue with active participation of 100 bikers. "The level of enthusiasm among the participants of the motorcycle rally was high," Khan said, adding that people now feel much more safe in the Meerut city.
People who participated in the PM's rally poll said they were excited about the event. "The reason for the excitement is that for the past 10 years, the Samajwadi Party, the BSP and the Congress were never seen enquiring the wellbeing of the citizens," Anjum Nizami, who runs a battery repairing unit here, said.
Yunus Saifi, a resident of Meerut South assembly segment, claimed that the BJP will win a majority of the Lok Sabha seats in the state. Dilshad Ahmad, a veterinary doctor who came from Bijnor to attend the rally, said that along with him, around 300 people came to listen to Prime Minister Modi. "There has been a significant change of mindset among people about the BJP. A large number of beneficiaries of various schemes of the government including Ayushman Yojana and Awas Yojana are Muslims. This election rally will definitely send a strong message to the public," he said.
BJP's Malik also said that "the turnout of so many Muslims in the election rally definitely suggest a significant shift of the community towards the BJP". He added that the Meerut Lok Sabha constituency has a significant number of Muslim voters. Malik said that in the 2019 elections, the alliance of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), SP and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) had achieved success in the Muslim-dominated region of western UP.
However, the political equations have completely changed this time, he claimed. The Lok Sabha constituencies in western UP with a sizeable Muslim population are Rampur (42 per cent), Amroha (32 per cent), Saharanpur (30 per cent), Bijnor, Nagina and Moradabad (28 per cent each), Muzaffarnagar (27 per cent), Kairana and Meerut (23 per cent each) and Sambhal (22 per cent).
Apart from this, the Muslim voters constitute 19 per cent of the electoral population each in Bulandshahr, Baghpat and Aligarh. Around 15.34 crore people are eligible to vote in Uttar Pradesh -- a politically crucial state with 80 Lok Sabha seats where the elections will be held in seven phases beginning April 19.
According to the election schedule, eight parliamentary constituencies will vote in the first phase on April 19. These are Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Nagina (SC), Moradabad, Rampur and Pilibhit. In the 2019 general elections, the BJP won 62 seats and its ally Apna Dal (S) two seats, brushing aside the challenge of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance.
The BSP was the biggest gainer in the alliance with 10 seats. Akhilesh Yadav's SP won five seats while the RLD couldn't open its account in the polls. The Congress won the lone Raebareli seat from where Sonia Gandhi had contested.
