At 64, Modi won 2014 riding the Hindutva tiger. The BJP cornered 31 percent of the total vote-share, the remaining 59 percent scattered among the divided Opposition, and not voted.

At 69, Modi won 2019 with an even bigger vote-share: 39/40 percent. The BJP won 303 seats. Again the votes were overwhelmingly Hindutva.

Both times, Modi never gave a thought to the Muslim votes. Out of bound, out of mind. The cow vigilantism, and the lynching spree, ensured neither Modi nor the Muslims saw eye to eye.

The poor opinion was/is mutual. And the media and the debates have kept the mutual distrust going. The Muslim-Hindutva hate-binary never wavered under much of the Modi years since 2014 and so far.

The 2022 5-states elections were a turning point, when the BJP used the Modi government's central welfare schemes to woo the poorer sections of the Muslims, the pasmanda Muslims, the ones with a ‘dna match’ with the Hindu. Free rations, Ujjwala and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana became the focus. And winning Uttar Pradesh a second time in succession was a confidence-booster.

The BJP even claimed that Muslims in large numbers voted BJP in the recent Gujarat elections, too, which saw Modi go down to bare-knuckles, and ‘Vote me, I’m your Gujarati asmita’.

BJP won Gujarat with a landslide. But did the Muslims vote Modi/BJP like BJP claims? That is a grey area, but a referendum in Gujarat will clear the doubts. Almost the entire lot of Gujarat Muslims will vote against the BJP. The BBC-2’s ‘The Modi Question’ should have aired before, a week or two, the 2022 Gujarat assembly elections.

Modi wouldn’t have got the kind of mandate he got if ‘The Modi Question’ was telecast before the Gujarat assembly elections, or the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. Like they say, timing is of essence.

So, will Modi’s ‘communal engineering’ help the BJP get its hands on a good number of pasmanda Muslim votes along with a minimum 40 percent Hindu votes come 2024 general elections?

It is still early days, but time gallops when in election mode. And don’t say people have no idea of just how quickly time passes. Take the word of a journalist, elections move faster and closer than you’re likely to expect.

And there is an opinion forming that Modi’s outreach to pasmanda Muslims is already dead in the water. Also, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is moon-struck when thinking and talking of the pasmanda.

Only those who have married Muslims under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 would understand the Muslim mindset. Those who convert to Islam to marry Muslims will not. That’s the truth, and straight from the horse’ mouth.

Modi, perhaps, must have consulted Muslim leaders. But there are very few pasmanda ‘Islamic scholars’. Those who break heads with primetime anchors and Hindu ‘dharam gurus’ are mostly Ashrafi Muslims who claim Mughals their ancestors and would not recommend Muslims to vote Modi if the roof fell on them!

Actually, there is no such Muslim called a moderate. Islam does not differentiate. And the Muslim opinion of Modi has not changed in 9 years or, in the case of Gujarat, for 20 years. Whatever doubts were left have been cleared after the telecast of ‘The Modi Question’.

That being said, at 72 Prime Minister Narendra Modi has seen more summers than he had when he was 64. And perhaps he is banking on gut feeling. Not just a hunch. Besides, the man has lost very few elections in 20 years. So, let’s give him the benefit of doubt.

Then again, the benefit of doubt is a court thing. Muslims don’t hand out benefits of doubt. Not when it happens to be an individual named Narendra Modi, once Gujarat Chief Minister, who is now Prime Minister. Narendra Modi will never get the benefit of doubt from the Muslim who never doubted Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s role in Gujarat 2002.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BJP National Executive asked BJP leaders to reach out to voters of all denominations. "We have 400 days and we have to do everything to service the people. We have to create history," Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis quoted Modi. “PM Modi asked the BJP members to reach out to every section of society, including minorities such as Bohras, Pasmandas and Sikhs, without electoral considerations.”

Modi said the BJP is not just a political movement but also a social movement. He spoke of India's "sarvottam kaal" still to come. Tell that to a Muslim, pasmanda or Ashrafi, and mention Narendra Modi in the same breath, and the reaction will not surprise too many. (IPA Service)