The BJP manifesto has fascist undertones and aims to create a powerful centre, a Muslim leader said Monday, while calling on the minorities to vote tactically to defeat the BJP.
At the national level, All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat (AIMMM) president Zafarul-Islam Khan asked the secular people to vote for either the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) or the Congress, noting that AAP should be the first choice as a secular alternative.
"If the secular votes get divided, then people who do not want to accommodate the minorities will get a chance to form the government at the centre," he said.
He set out his organisation's political agenda for elections 2014 under which the BSP, TMC, RJD and the CPI have been listed as secular parties whom the minorities should vote for in states where these parties are dominant.
Attacking the Samajwadi Party for failing to prevent the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh, he said his organisation's agenda does not include the party as a secular alternative to the BJP.
AIMMM general secretary Masoom Muradabadi said although Muslims have been loyal to the Congress since Independence, it has done little to improve their lot.
"Nevertheless, the Congress is secular in its ideology and people should vote for it to defeat the BJP," he said.