Patna, July 6: The BJP is reaching out to Muslims - the state's largest minority community that accounts for 15 per cent of voters - through the Muslim Bedari Yatra.

Bedari, in Urdu, means creating awareness and the party is doing just that. It is using the drive to send across a message to the minorities that the BJP was not untouchable and that the core issue for the community remained development.

The party had flagged off this yatra on November 30 last year in the presence of former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi and state BJP unit president Mangal Pandey.

Jamshed Ashraf, former excise minister in Nitish Kumar's first NDA cabinet, has been entrusted with leading the yatra.

Ashraf, a former JDU MLA from Sahebpur Kamal, joined the BJP just before Lok Sabha elections, in April last year.

Ashraf told The Telegraph: "The focus of the yatra is to create awareness. The real issue before the minorities is development and not communalism or secularism which the so-called secular parties have been chanting for long." Ashraf has been stressing on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's development plank where he promised "Sabka Saath Sabka Vikash (everybody's support, everybody's progress)".

But Ashraf, who was chairman of the Bihar Haj Committee from 2006 to 2009 and runs a shipping company in Mumbai, concedes they are facing a tough time winning over the minorities.

He said they are trying to convince the minorities by pointing out that no major co-mmunal riots had taken place in over a year since the Modi government came to power.

Also, Ashraf said: "Around 15 per cent of Muslims were living below poverty line at the time of India's Independence. The figure has risen to around 45 per cent even though the minorities have been voting for the so-called secular parties all along." The party claims to have enrolled just 77,000 Muslims, mostly in Seemanchal areas.

BJP sources said the central high command has asked it to include more and more members from the minority community, and the yatra was an effort to reach out to minorities.

Also, the party has set a target to make sure at least 10 per cent of the local membership comes from Muslims and other minority groups. Sources also said the yatra was aimed at checking minorities from aggressively voting against the BJP.

The yatra, which began in November, has covered many Seemanchal districts and plans to cover districts bordering Nepal and Uttar Pradesh, which have a sizeable concentration of Muslims, in the coming days. Sources said the BJP's central high command and the RSS have given the go-ahead for the yatra.

In fact, the RSS on Saturday held an iftar party for Muslims from across the country and diplomats from Muslim countries for the first time. Ambassadors of a few countries, including Egypt, and representatives from various Muslim countries attended the party.