Waqf Law, Polarisation, and the BJP’s Strategy Ahead of 2025 Election

The violence in West Bengal after the passage of the waqf law and potential disputes in Tamil Nadu over claims by the State Waqf Board are both flashpoints in the two States where Assembly elections are due next year and the BJP is not in power. Anything that dispossesses and disempowers India’s Muslim minority is believed to satisfy the primal urges of the ruling BJP-RSS cadre. There is a straight arc that goes from the abolition of Article 370 to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and now to the amended Waqf (Amendment) Act. On the face of it, we can say this is another step in the Hindu rashtra project. An image of Muslims turning violent—as seen in the recent tragic events in Bengal—neatly fits the Hindu right-wing narrative.

Naturally, the BJP has succeeded in pushing its agenda, and the potential to provoke one of the world’s largest minority communities feeds into its politics of polarisation—a strategy from which it consistently benefits.

Violent and aggressive protest is precisely what needs to be avoided by responsible members of the minority community. At a time when there are multiple challenges to the waqf law in the Supreme Court, it is also important to remember that this is not just a Muslim issue although often framed as one. The issue is also about public land, governance, and religious endowments besides the constitutionality of making one set of people jump through hoops even as they lose their rights and privileges.

This is how the fine Parliament debate on waqf was framed. The BJP expected the pushback to the new waqf law to be framed as a “Muslim” issue, and certainly many MPs from the minority community spoke forcefully. But disrupting the binary of Hindus vs Muslims was a vivid sequential display of several non-Muslim MPs powerfully opposing the Bill on grounds of unconstitutionality. There was a fierce pushback from MPs across the country, from North to South, including Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians.

The choked voice of Indian secularism was heard again, loudly and clearly, without the ifs and buts and the faux “balancing” so typical of debates and narratives in the age of Hindutva. In both Houses, the cut and thrust of argument went on way past midnight. The waqf debate was longer than the parliamentary debates following the abrogation of Article 370 and the introduction of CAA that led to countrywide protests in 2019-20.

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Both those debates took place in 2019, when the Narendra Modi-led BJP had won a second term and a simple majority. Indeed, the real difference is in the 2024 numbers as the BJP no longer enjoys a simple majority in Lok Sabha and is dependent on allies like the Telugu Desam Party, the Janata Dal (United), or JD(U); the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), or LJP(RV), and the Rashtriya Lok Dal to pass the Bill. Herein lies the rub as all these parties have had some measure of Muslim support. They were being asked to jettison that, and the non-BJP National Democratic Alliance (NDA) MPs who raised specific points when the Bill was scrutinised by the Joint Parliamentary Committee got calls from Union Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju and higher-ups in New Delhi. Passing this law was vital to the BJP-RSS.

So eventually, the MPs of the NDA partners hemmed and hawed, flailed around to say how they pushed for certain changes in the proposed amendments, declared that they were really secular and speaking for the mass of the Muslim population instead of the corrupt elites. And then they voted in favour of the Bill. Their discomfort followed by surrender was a reminder that although the BJP does not have a simple majority in the Lok Sabha, it still enjoys a certain hegemony through its control over political finance and thereby has the ability to cater to the material needs of its NDA partners.

The next big State election is in Bihar in October-November 2025, and there is speculation in Patna about the timing of the waqf law and whether it is a googly to also keep the BJP’s allies more compliant/vulnerable. Both the JD(U), led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, and the LJP(RV), led by Chirag Paswan, have had support from a section of the Muslim community (around 17 per cent of the State’s population). That support could logically move away, and some Muslim members of the JD(U) have already quit the party. What we can expect is a campaign managed and financed by the BJP-RSS where Nitish Kumar, an OBC, and Chirag Paswan, a Dalit, are just caste props. Yet the conundrum for the BJP is that it has no face of its own in Bihar, and if Nitish Kumar ditches it again, the caste calculus may not work for it.

A pitched communal campaign over certain waqf properties is always possible except that Bihar has, with occasional flashes, not shown an inclination for Hindutva politics on the scale of neighbouring Uttar Pradesh. Plus, across the Hindi belt, Muslims are cautious about walking into ideological traps designed to ensnare and profile them.

The Congress, meanwhile, has incrementally been earning the goodwill of the minority communities across India, although their vote often goes to regional parties that are strong in States. In Bihar too, the sense is that the Congress earned goodwill from its stand in the waqf debate but remains in organisational disarray. It is trying to revive itself to a level where it can bring some heft as an ally in the opposition front led by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). This should count as in the last State contest (2020) it had the worst strike rate of all the parties that constituted the opposition.

Indeed, some analysts argue that had the Congress not performed so miserably, the RJD-led front of Tejashwi Yadav could have won the Assembly election. The Congress had then won just 19 of 70 seats, a strike rate of 27 per cent. The RJD won 52 per cent of the seats it contested and remains the largest party in terms of individual strength in the Bihar Assembly. The best strike rate was that of the CPI(Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, at 63 per cent, as it contested 19 seats and won 12. This highlights how the social/political spectrum of Bihar is distinct.

Also Read | Propriety, not just property: The Waqf debate

But waqf certainly is a key issue in Bihar as the desertions from the JD(U) show. It has become a live wire in West Bengal, headed to the polls in March-April 2026, with the BJP positioned as the main challenger to the ruling Trinamool Congress. Around the same time, BJP-ruled Assam—with its large Muslim population and numerous waqf properties—will also go to the polls, and here too, the Congress poses the main challenge to the BJP. It is noteworthy that Jorhat MP Gaurav Gogoi (whose father, the late Tarun Gogoi, was the longest serving Chief Minister of the State) was one of the most effective speakers on waqf from the Congress. March-April 2026 is also the season for State contests in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where the BJP has not been able to penetrate beyond a point but works hard on every possible strategy. Waqf too will be part of the arsenal.

Earlier, when the party and the Parivar mobilised or legislated on ideological grounds, the focus was usually on a single theme: one mandir, one State, one language. The Ram mandir movement that put the party on the electoral map was focussed on the town of Ayodhya and was about building one temple. The new waqf law, however, has the potential of lighting small fires across the country. All non-BJP parties must now work to ensure that does not happen. Those who see themselves as leaders of the Muslim community too need to ensure this.