Mumbai: Ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly elections, Vishwa Hindu Parishad has launched a state-wide campaign asking people to vote for Hindu candidates and the party working as the well-wisher of Hindus. With this initiative, VHP aims at increasing the overall voter turnout and also increase Hindu votes at the same time.

Countering INDIA alliance’s strategy of involving civil society organisations to campaign for them in the Lok Sabha elections, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has started campaigning for Bharatiya Janata Party by visiting voters in slums and high-rise buildings. The campaign, which has kicked off since 15 days, focuses on constituencies which have prominent Muslim candidates.

In Mumbai, VHP will focus on Malad West constituency, where incumbent MLA Aslam Shaikh is running for his fourth consecutive term and on Chandivali constituency where former cabinet minister Arif Naseem Khan is expected to give a strong fight to incumbent MLA Dilip Lande. The campaign will motivate Hindu voters across the state to vote for Hindu MLAs in their constituency with an aim of bringing in the Mahayuti government.

Talking to The Free Press Journal, Mohan Salekar, secretary of VHP Konkan division, said, “We saw in the last Lok Sabha elections that a party got 99 seats due to Vote Jihaad and there has been rise in violence against Hindus in the country. Learning from this, we need to understand that Hindus need to come out and vote in favour of Hinduism to save our community and culture. This will also help in foiling the plan of converting India into a Muslim nation.”

The campaign which is being executed by the organisation’s members at the block level is asking people to vote for the party which works as the well-wisher for Hindu community. Without naming the party, the VHP is distributing pamphlets among people asking people to vote for the BJP. The organisation will visit various societies and slums in each locality across the state until the day of polling and ask them to not get carried away by caste divide and unitedly vote for Hindu candidates.

“We saw in Bangladesh how the issue of reservation changed into violence against Hindus and similarly in Canada Hindus were attacked inside the temple. In India, we saw stone pelting during Ganeshotsav and how Hindus in a society of Taloja were not allowed to put up lights on the occasion of Diwali. Our aim is that Hindu candidates should come out victorious and make the majority in Vidhan Sabha,” added Salekar.