BJP’s March Through Haryana Could Come to a Halt at Mewat. Here’s Why

The party’s communal image, coupled with cow vigilante violence, may have severely damaged its chances despite the popularity of its candidates.

In July, in villages in Nuh constituency in Mewat district, there was tentative consensus that BJP would win the seat.

However, as the election has approached, the tide has been shifting in favour of the Congress. Despite the popularity of BJP candidate Zakir Hussain and a party effort to appeal to Muslim voters by nominating local leaders; many Muslims feel marginalised and dissatisfied with the BJP government, especially in Mewat where cow protection violence has been rising.

It is a significant contest because its outcome will reveal whether divisive policies and communal rhetoric are holding back BJP’s ambition of electoral dominance.

With historically low levels of communal conflict, the Hindu-Muslim cleavage has not been politically salient in Haryana.

BJP has also had little success in the state. Until 2014, the party maintained a stable vote share of around 9-10%, and only twice has its number of seats in the assembly reached a double-digit figure.

More than two thirds of the state’s small Muslim population (7%) is concentrated in Mewat, and the district is the only Muslim majority (79.2%) area in the state.

None of its three assembly constituencies (Nuh, Ferozepur Jhirka, Punhana) have ever seen a non-Muslim elected to the assembly. In the Nuh constituency particularly, this explains the BJP’s lack of success: for the past three elections, it has nominated a Hindu candidate.

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In the months preceding the 2014 assembly election, there was communal violence in Tauru, a town in Mewat. BJP leaders were implicated for their role in instigating Hindu mobs, and it has been alleged that the party was trying to polarise voters along communal lines for electoral gains, while INLD candidate Zakir Hussain is alleged to have instigated Muslim mobs.

This polarised voters in the region along communal lines and all three Mewat seats went to INLD while BJP won the neighbouring Hindu majority seat Sohna. 

After the 2019 general election, INLD MLAs Zakir Hussain and Naseem Ahmed, from Nuh and Ferozepur Jhirka respectively, joined the BJP. In addition to Punhana MLA Rahish Khan, this now meant that all of Mewat’s current Muslim MLAs had aligned themselves with the party. BJP had thus shifted tactics from Hindu consolidation to vying for Muslims votes.

As one elderly resident of Jaisinghpur village in Nuh testified, “They were never interested in our votes earlier. Suddenly they are holding rally after rally in every village”.

Although this did result in a groundswell of support for BJP, the narrative around the party amongst Muslims, even those planning to vote for it, is unambiguous. Since power changed hands in 2014, Muslims in Mewat have faced increasing cow protection violence and harassment by cow protection groups (linked to the Sangh) and the police.

This has forced many Muslims to abandon cattle rearing, traditionally their main occupation, out of fear. They cite the lynchings of Pehlu Khan and Rakbar Khan, both of whom belonged to Mewat, and blame the government for inaction against the perpetrators.

Representative image of cattle seized by cow vigilantes pictured in a gaushala, Barsana, India, on June 13, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Cathal McNaughton

There has also been little in the way of development in the region, known as the most “backward” in Haryana. 

The unpopularity of the BJP among Muslims in Mewat was confirmed by the general election results. Even as the party swept the state, it polled significantly worse than the Congress in all three assembly segments.

In the Nuh seat, BJP is hoping Zakir Hussain’s popularity will overcome this. Known as the “Chaudhury of 36 Biradaris”, he is the traditional leader of the assorted caste-groups of the region, and seen as a leader of Meo Muslims extending beyond Mewat district.

He is also the son of former MP Tayyab Hussain, heir to one of the important political families of Mewat and has been elected thrice to the Haryana Assembly. However, the BJP tag has hurt his prospects. Many voters clearly said that they had planned to vote for Zakir before he had joined the BJP, but now their votes would go to the Congress.

Others projected that Zakir would have received one lakh votes and won without trouble if he had stood as an independent. Yet his changed public persona, from the leader and irrepressible “defender” of Meo Muslims, to that of a subservient insider, has created a feeling of humiliation among many, particularly when he was the only candidate to touch Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s feet at the latter’s Faridabad rally.

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It provoked the question of whether BJP’s inclusive appeal entailed subservience. Many Muslims do still plan to vote BJP for tactical reasons. They feel they have suffered over the past five years by electing a representative who was not from the ruling party. “Everyone knows BJP is going to win, then what is the point of us choosing an MLA from the losing party”, responded one such voter. 

The Congress has fielded a candidate from the other important political family in Mewat: Aftaab Ahmed, son of late Congress leader Khurshid Ahmed. He has served as a minister in the Haryana government, and has been elected from multiple constituencies in Mewat.

Campaigning in Jaisinghpur, Pehlu Khan’s village, he vowed justice for Pehlu’s family and an anti-lynching law if elected. This seemed to go down well with voters who complained of growing incidence of discrimination and harassment, and a communalised climate of hate and fear.

Many also feel that under him, Mewat saw development: schools being built, infrastructural projects and higher education institutions initiated, as contrasted with stagnation in the past five years. 

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Nuh’s 23.5% Hindu population might act as a kind of swing vote. In the previous Assembly election, and the Lok Sabha polls, this group consolidated behind the BJP; but this time the party’s nomination of a Muslim has created disgruntlement. Hindus see Zakir, in particular, as a “communal”, “anti-Hindu” face because of his involvement in the 2014 violence.  

The Congress may capitalise on this by projecting Aftaab as an educated, “moderate” leader who can represent all communities.

Yet one veteran RSS activist suggested that there are always noises about voting for other parties, but ultimately they are able ensure everyone (the Hindus) votes BJP, since it is “their” party.

Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) has emerged as a contender with an outside chance, with its candidate Dr Tayab Hussain Ghasedia perceived as a “good man”, particularly popular amongst lower class voters.

In Ferozepur Jhirka, there is a similar contest, though a Congress party worker admitted that the seat may be hard to wrest from BJP’s Naseem Ahmed. In Punhana, the BJP passed over Rahish Khan and gave the ticket to a new face, Hindu candidate Nauksham Chaudhury.


The question is how the BJP will reconcile this bid, where it has backed a traditional Muslim dynast, with its broader strategy of consolidating Hindu voters and bringing in a ‘new’ brand of politics.

BJP minister Rao Narbir Singh has invoked the “backwardness” of the region and vowed to develop it, saying it has faced “discrimination” in the past. BJP presents itself as the ‘truly secular’ party that will treat Mewat at par with the rest of Haryana.

However, in August, an interfaith marriage provoked a mahapanchayat by Hindutva groups against “love jihad”. It was attended by local BJP leaders, who vowed violence if the Hindu girl was not “returned”.

Kulbhushan Bhardwaj of the BJP blamed the three recent additions to the party for their inaction. Notably, Bhardwaj represents a faction within the party dissatisfied with the distribution of tickets to these Muslim MLAs. This controversy seems to have impacted BJP’s chances; with Muslims in the area feeling more threatened by the prospect of BJP in power. 

BJP claims to be adopting an inclusive approach in the Muslim majority region, even as it rakes up communal concerns in other parts of the country.

Yet only the outcome will tell whether Muslim voters have been alienated from the party to the point where a popular candidate and traditional leader is unable to secure votes. 

Sumer Sharma is pursuing an MSc in Political Sociology at the London School of Economics.