So it is that heavyweights like Union home minister Amit Shah and U.P. chief minister Yogi Adityanath have campaigned in Hyderabad along with the BJP’s president, J.P. Nadda, and the head of the party’s youth wing, Tejasvi Surya.

One reason for the party’s focus on Hyderabad is to cut the rising Muslim politician, Asaduddin Owaisi, and his All India Majlis-e-Ittahahul Muslimeen (AIMIM) down to size. Although Owaisi has been accused by the secular camp of being the BJP’s “B” team or vote katua (cutter) who helps the saffron party by drawing Muslim votes away from the anti-BJP parties, his recent success in winning five seats in the Bihar election appears to have warned the BJP against allowing him to grow.

The BJP may have presumed that even if the AIMIM damages the secular camp at the moment, its influence on the minority community may persuade the parties of the national opposition to come to an understanding with it even if at the moment they are all extremely wary of the Majlis.

However, Owaisi’s offer to Mamata Banerjee for an alliance against the BJP in next year’s assembly elections in West Bengal suggests that he is open to the idea of teaming up with the secularists. He probably realizes that he cannot go far on his own and will need help along the way.

He is also apparently keen on breaking out of Hyderabad and entering the all-India stage. If the AIMIM can keep the BJP at bay in the Telangana capital which Yogi Adityanath wants to rename as Bhagyanagar, it will be a big boost to Owaisi’s prestige and open doors for him on the non-BJP side of the fence.

Apart from trying to marginalize the AIMIM, another of the BJP’s reasons for making its forey in the Nizam’s former city is to ascertain whether it can widen its reach in south India from Karnataka to Telangana and beyond. The fact that it will be opposing in the process the state’s ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) which has been an ally in all but name for having supported measures like abrogating Article 370 doesn’t seem to bother the BJP.

Considering how the BJP is suspected to have used the Lok Janshakti Party leader, Chirag Paswan, to undercut a much closer ally, Nitish Kumar, in Bihar, its manoeuvres in Telangana are unlikely to surprise anyone. For the BJP which aims to rule from panchayats to parliament, the campaigning by its luminaries in Hyderabad is patently a part of a larger game plan.

In executing it, the party is resorting to its customary tactics of fomenting communal tension by comparing Owaisi with Jinnah, which suggests that it doesn’t care to win the vishwas (trust) of the Muslims in keeping with the party’s all-embracing slogan: sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas.

It is clear that the BJP will use this tactic in its next big test in West Bengal where the Muslims comprise 30 per cent of the population. In Hyderabad, the percentage is 40-plus. Not only that, Hyderabad is a city steeped in Muslim culture, more than anywhere else in south India. The BJP wants to see how its polarizing ploys work in such an environment.

Hence, the sparring over biryani with Owaisi offering a beef dish to the visiting BJP leaders and a BJP MLA responding with an invitation to the AIMIM leader to a meal of pork biryani. The slugfest will tell the BJP how to peddle its communal line in areas with a high concentration of Muslims as in West Bengal.

The party has already tried this approach in Bihar’s Seemanchal area where the percentage of Muslims is 47. The attempt at polarization was seen in Narendra Modi’s reference during the election campaign to those who are unwilling to say Jai Shri Ram or Bharat Mata ki Jai. In Hyderabad, Amit Shah has called for ending Nizami culture and building a modern nation.

Success for the BJP in Hyderabad will confirm for the BJP the electoral utility of this approach where the gap between the Muslim and non-Muslim populations is small as in some West Bengal constituencies. Otherwise, the BJP will have to rethink its tactics.
(IPA Service)