One thing is certain. The days of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Syed Shahnawaz Hussain as Muslim faces of BJP are practically over.
Nayi season; nayi chehre (faces) !
Modi and Tariq Mansoor, party's new national vice president
For the BJP, Uttar Pradesh presents a challenge.
Muslim voters account for roughly 20 per cent of the population and are electorally significant across regions.
The party has made repeated attempts in recent years to woo sections of the community, particularly Pasmanda Muslims (socially and economically marginalised Muslim groups).
Mansoor and Ali’s appointments in Team Nabin now give that outreach a more visible face.
Not only in UP, even in the rest of India - there has been a sharp decline in number of Muslim legislators and MPs in the last decade and even in the last 20 years.
We may say the decline in the number of Muslim MLAs has a direct correlation with the acceptance and the rise of Hindutva politics in national mainstream.
L K Advani's Rath Yatra - 1990
The general argument is the impact of the communally surcharged atmosphere after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 could be directly felt in the Assembly elections that took place in Madhya Pradesh in 1993.
Not a single Muslim MLA was elected in Madhya Pradesh that year.
This was unprecedented.
In terms of number yet again, In UP there were 628 Muslim MLAs by 2022.
Total legislators in the state then stood at of 7,389. Hence, over 8 per cent were Muslims while population figures of UP vis-a-vis Muslims stood at 15.5 per cent.
Another Hindutva-stronghold state Gujarat has had only 39 Muslim MLAs out of 2,296 until 2017—just 1.69 per cent. The Muslims constituted 8.6 per cent of the state’s population.
These new appointments point to a strategy that goes beyond mere UP calculations. The larger arithmetic and permutation-combination is about whether the BJP can make even limited gains among Muslim voters in a state where the community has traditionally remained outside its electoral coalition.
Although Muslims have increasingly voted in a unified way since the 2019 general elections, political and social mobilization highlights divisions along sub-identities like caste and sect.
Muslim caste hierarchies and other sub-identities such as sect have also become important topics of political conversations.
This raises pressing questions for electoral dynamics.
Hence, many suggest in more ways than one, the idea of a coherent Muslim voting bloc is over.
And if this is so - it suits BJP.
Intellectuals often pose questions like - do group-based solidarities around religion and caste exist for Muslims?
Now from BJP's point of view - Mansoor’s elevation is particularly significant because of his profile.
A former vice-chancellor of AMU, Aligarh he brings an academic background and a degree of social standing.
He is a new comer that way, having joined the Lotus party in 2023. He was spotted by top leaders because he is "different" from the BJP’s traditional Muslim leadership in the province.
BJP hopes to break the pattern:
In 2020 Bihar elections, about 77 percent of Muslims voted for the Mahagathbandhan.
In the 2021 West Bengal elections, 75 percent of Muslims voted for the Trinamool Congress. This was not the case in 2026; and the outcome is well known.
In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections, which BJP retained after a fierce battle, as high as 79 percent of Muslims - according to studies - voted for the Samajwadi Party.
This number swelled in favour of Akhilesh Yadav-led party in 2024 Lok Sabha elections and hence BJP paid a bigger price. The Muslim candidates of SP did extremely well in the parliamentary elections.
How the magic worked?
SP fielded just four Muslims :: and all four won.
Zia Ur Rehman (Sambhal), Afzal Ansari (Ghazipur), Iqra Hasan (Kairana) and Mohinullah Nadvi (Rampur).
The BSP fielded 10 Muslims. They lost and the vote share they took was marginal leading ultimately to BJP's defeat in many constituencies.
ends
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