The controversial Sachar Committee recommendations on Muslims and not the ongoing controversy over the Ramar Sethu, will be the central focus of the BJP's campaign in the coming assembly polls in various states including Gujarat.

The RSS wants the Ramar Sethu issue to be taken up by “the sant samaj” under the banner of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). Thus, the BJP would not be seeking to make another “Ramjanmbhoomi movement” out of the Sethu row.

The BJP campaign for the assembly polls would be anchored around the Sachar Committee  recommendations for the welfare of Muslims and the action taken report (ATR) on the issue tabled by the UPA government in Parliament.

The party is hoping that the Sachar controversy has the potential of becoming another Shah Bano row.
In its action taken report on the Sachar Committee recommendations, the government had announced a slew of measures for the Muslim community in the face of stiff resistance from the saffron groups.

The BJP would point out that the UPA government was “incapable” of a broad vision for the country and was hence narrowing down national interests to fit its “vote-bank politics”, sources in BJP told Deccan Herald.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's comments that Muslims have the first claim over the country’s resources, the alleged head-counts in the army and the judiciary on the basis of religion and the government’s decision to announce a string of sops for the Muslim community, go on to show that the ruling dispensation “could go to any extent in pursuit of its vote-bank politics”, they said.

“The Sachar Committee has put the nation on the path destruction. The Prime Minister, who constituted this committee, must accept this reality and wind it up forthwith,” BJP General Secretary Arun Jaitley said.

But the party is bound to invoke the Ramar Sethu controversy as well in the run-up to the elections.

 The government’s “offensive” comments on Lord Ram with the Sachar controversy would provide the right incendiary mix to “expose” the UPA's “vote-bank game plan”, the sources felt.

The BJP's Hindutva poster boy, Narendra Modi, has already hit the road with the twin issues in the poll-bound Gujarat.