‘They do not want Delhi to interfere’: why Punjab will be an outlier in the India election
- Only 21 per cent of Sikhs say they want Modi’s government to return and the mainly Sikh state of Punjab is not concerned with the issues driving the national electorate to polls
Critics of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government, led by incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have often said it is unfavourable to India’s roughly 190 million Muslims.
A widely-cited study, which surveyed some 10,000 people across 19 of India’s 29 states, seemed to confirm this.
“A clear reflection of the absence of the practice of inclusiveness is seen in the response of the religious minorities,” said the report by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). “While close to half the Hindu respondents felt the BJP should get another chance, more than half the Muslim respondents were against a second chance for the BJP.”
However, the group that seemed to be the least supportive of the BJP and Modi was not Muslims but another religious minority group.
Some 68 per cent of Sikhs surveyed said they were against voting Modi back into power, compared with 56 per cent of Muslims, and 36 per cent of all respondents. Only 21 per cent of Sikhs – a group which makes up 1.9 per cent of India’s population – said they wanted Modi’s government to return.
