BSP revives Muslim outreach ahead of 2027 UP polls with ‘Bhaichara’ committees
text_fields
Three years after shelving its Muslim outreach efforts, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has revived its Muslim Samaj Bhaichara Sangathan in Uttar Pradesh in a bid to rebuild support among Muslim voters.
The move comes after consecutive electoral defeats in 2022 and 2024, when the party failed to secure Muslim backing despite fielding several candidates from the community.
BSP chief Mayawati is set to meet party coordinators from all 18 divisions of Uttar Pradesh in Lucknow to discuss the revival plan. This will be her first such meeting focusing on Muslim voters since the 2022 Assembly elections.
Muslims constitute about 19% of UP’s population, and the BSP had earlier given them significant representation — 88 candidates in the 2022 Assembly polls and 37 in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. However, none of them won. Following the defeats, Mayawati had publicly expressed disappointment over the community’s preference for the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance.
The party’s renewed strategy aims to rebuild the Dalit-Muslim alliance that once helped the BSP gain power in the state. Each divisional-level bhaichara (brotherhood) committee will be headed by a Scheduled Caste leader to strengthen coordination between Dalits and Muslims.
According to senior party leaders, the new committees have already begun outreach efforts to rebuild trust and promote “bhaichara” between the two communities. The BSP leadership believes that regaining Muslim confidence could be key to reshaping its political fortunes ahead of the 2027 Assembly elections.