With Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi's term ending, no Muslim among BJP MPs
The Hindu
The term of two others, former Union Minister M. J. Akbar and Syed Zafar Islam, has already ended.
With the Rajya Sabha term of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi ending on July 7, the BJP will have no Muslim MP among its 395 Members of Parliament.
Mr. Naqvi, who resigned from the Cabinet on July 6, was among the three BJP Muslim MPs whose term ended during the recent round of Rajya Sabha polls to 57 seats across 15 States but none of them were renominated by the party. The term of two others, former Union Minister M. J. Akbar and Syed Zafar Islam, has already ended.
The Opposition has been accusing the BJP of not giving adequate representation to Muslims, but the saffron party has maintained that its MPs work for all communities and are not representatives of any religion.
Over the decades, Muslim BJP MPs have had a nominal presence in Parliament. Mr. Naqvi himself has been a Rajya Sabha member for three terms, Najma Heptulla for two terms and Shahnawaz Hussain, currently a Minister in the Bihar government, was elected to Lok Sabha twice. Mr. Naqvi was a Lok Sabha member for one term as well.
Sikander Bakht, a founder member of the party and one of its first three general secretaries, was a Rajya Sabha member twice. It will be after a considerable period of time that the BJP will not have any Muslim MP.
To questions about the development, BJP minority morcha chief Jamal Siddiqui asserted that politics should not be attached with religion and that MPs are elected as representatives of the people and not of any religion.