In India’s tribal-dominated Jharkhand, BJP labels Muslims as ‘Bangladeshis’

The right-wing party is accused of trying to divide tribal and Muslim votes by raising the bogey of ‘Bangladeshi infiltrators’ in a key region of the state. Gafur is a Muslim, a community in Jharkhand that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has been painting as “Bangladeshi infiltrators” for months as it seeks to unseat a coalition of opposition parties, led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, in the two-phase state assembly election that started on November 13. “The country knows that 900,000 Hindus and 700,000 Muslims were left out in the final draft of Assam’s NRC,” Jharkhand-based lawyer Shadab Ansari told Al Jazeera, adding that such campaigns will have no effect in a tribal-dominated state. BJP spokesman Shahdev told Al Jazeera the video “tried to show how horrific the situation is when intruders forcefully enter someone’s house”. ‘We can only be patient’ The BJP may have taken down the video, but its top leaders – including Modi’s main aide, Home Minister Amit Shah, and BJP chief Jagat Prakash Nadda – have long been targeting the JMM-led government, accusing it of helping “illegal” Muslims settle across the state and adding them to the voters’ list.