Narendra Modi, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate, reached out to Muslims on Sunday by promising them “inclusive” economic development.
"We believe in economic development, while you play the politics of votes, letting Muslims languish in poverty," Modi said at a rally in Uttar Pradesh state, in a jibe at rival political parties.
In a Hindu-dominated country, Muslims account for 13 percent of India's population and play a critical role in deciding electoral outcomes in at least 100 of the 543 parliamentary seats.
With general elections less than three months away, Modi - the election frontrunner - is seeking to woo Muslim voters. In doing so, he is seeking to change popular Muslim perception of him as an anti-Muslim leader. He has already said he regrets the riots in his home state of Gujarat that killed at least 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, in 2002.
But the jury is still out on whether India’s Muslims are willing to forget and forgive Modi for the deadly riots. Some of them spoke to Shaikh Azizur Rahman about what they thought about Modi and his latest sales-pitch for their votes.
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