The Muslim voter who voted for the BJP in 2014
It was only in the years after that Tauhid Khan realised that the party’s politics often put his own community in the crosshairs.
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Tauhid Khan had turned 18 just days before he voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Lok Sabha election in 2014.
Khan had had his voter ID card made in April that year, and was delighted about it – he felt that voting rights put him at par with adults. “My father used to watch the news every day and there would often be political discussions at home ahead of the elections,” Khan said. “I used to participate in those discussions, and getting to vote meant I would be able to voice my opinion in a more decisive way.” He votes from the Kolkata Dakshin Lok Sabha constituency, where this year polling will be held on June 1.
Khan’s opinions were heavily influenced by the corruption allegations against the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. “The Commonwealth Games scam, the 2G scam, the Anna anti-corruption movement, they were all over the news,” he said.
Khan also recalls the role played by Facebook pages he subscribed to, which convinced him that the Congress prime ministerial candidate Rahul Gandhi was a “pappu” – a pejorative nickname coined by the BJP to portray its political rival as incompetent. “There is much research now that shows how those Facebook posts...
