His Mission
There are 5 critical issues with the governance of Bihar that Jamshaid is campaigning against. These are:
- Lack of development
- High corruption levels
- Marginalisation of Muslims
- Poor education levels
- Social Welfare
Read more about each of these points, and what Jamshaid Ashraf has done, is currently doing, and will continue to do to improve all these 5 points.
- Lack of development – In Bihar, there was a useless Congress government, and then the RJD government by Lalu Prasad ruled for 15 years and took Bihar back by 30 years in terms of development when compared to other states. Unemployment rose, education levels fell, and the people started fleeing from Bihar, leading to a talent drain. Crime rates rose dramatically, and kidnapping became a massive business in Bihar, leading to further emigration of businessmen, doctors and other affluent people from Bihar to other safer states. Then came Mr. Nitish Kumar with big promises, but he failed to deliver on them. Whatever was done during the 9 years of his rule, was effective only till BJP was partner. For the past 1.5 years, after leaving BJP, Bihar has fallen back to the bad times, with rising unemployment, crimes and lack of education, and is going back to the Lalu Prasad era.
- Corruption levels – The corruption levels in Bihar are incredibly high, and Jamshaid Ashraf is strongly against corruption – an example of this is how he found massive levels of corruption in his own Excise department, due to which the revenues were significantly decreased, and clearly raised his voice against it publicly and notified the then CM, Mr. Nitish Kumar about that.
- Marginalisation of Muslims – Muslims have been used as merely a vote bank, with low focus on their development – an example of this is that after independence, 15% of the Muslims were below-poverty-line (BPL), but now almost 45% of Muslims are below poverty line (BPL). There has also been a lack of any serious push in education. All so called secular governments ruling Bihar didn’t pay any attention towards real development of Muslims, only scared them about the communalism of other parties, like Jan Sangh, RSS and now BJP.
- Poor education levels – Good levels of education are what determine the future of the next generation, and thus of the State. Unfortunately, the education levels in Bihar are abysmal. There is insufficient infrastructure and funding, computer education, which is a critical aspect of being competitive today is completely lacking, over 60,000 primary schools are running without principals, around 2,800 primary schools don’t have even a single classroom and there are thousands of teachers who are completely unqualified to teach, yet they have been appointed without any competency tests. It is saddening to see that as a State, Bihar has one of the lowest literacy rates in India, of 63%, against the national average of 74% – and even this rate is inflated due to things like fake admissions, where in 2011, over 20 lakh fake admissions were found, with students enrolling in multiple schools in order to get benefits like free uniforms and bicycles.
- Social Welfare – “Give a person a fish, and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to fish, and you help feed them for a lifetime.” So goes the famous saying. Similarly, Social Welfare should be about more than just discounted food rations – programs should be set up to provide training to people to help them become skilled workers and find employment. This helps the individuals, as well as the State by creating a supply of skilled workpeople and uplifting people from poverty. One such great program could have been “Hunar”, under which girls were supposed to be given vocational training in order to help them find jobs and become self supporting. However, under Mr. Nitish Kumar’s government, the funds allocated from the centre for this program were returned unutilised, showing how little focus the JDU has on Social Welfare and help and development of the poor.
His mission is to address all these 5 points:
- Pro Development – As an extremely successful businessman who built up a business employing over 3,000 people from scratch, Jamshaid knows a lot about being pro development and getting things done. During his tenure as the Minister of Excise, he increased the revenue from Rs. 223 crores to Rs. 1,000 crores. Similarly, with his Portfolio as Minister of Registration, he increased the revenues from Rs. 250 crores to Rs. 900 crores. He also introduced franking machines, e-registration and computerisation of registration offices, making the process very streamlined and user friendly. This is the pro development and results driven attitude he wants to use to help develop Bihar, and this is why he believes BJP, under the leadership of Mr. Narendra Modi is the best party to develop Bihar – “Sabka saath, sabka vikaas”.
- Clean, honest, anti corrupt stance – Jamshaid’s clean and anti-corrupt stance is widely known and respected. He is the only Muslim minister in India to have given up 2 portfolios and resigned as a protest against the existing corruption. It is part of his mission to decrease the levels of corruption in Bihar in the move towards a more developed and efficient economy.
- Progress of Muslims – Muslims avoid BJP, assuming that it is not secular – however, the truth is that parties that claim to be secular do so only to use Muslims as a vote bank. Jamshaid believes that BJP, under the leadership of Mr. Narendra Modi, is truly working hard to integrate Muslims and lead to their development. As an example, in the budget, the Finance Minister has allocated Rs. 100 crores specifically to the development of Muslims, or Mr. Modi’s push to have residences built in Saudi Arabia for Indian Hajjis going for Hajj shows his positive attitude towards the Muslim community. Muslims have been misled about BJP, and no leaders in Bihar have patiently educated and convinced them about BJP’s stance towards integration of all communities and development. It is Jamshaid’s mission to get Muslims involved with BJP, and he has been very successful with that mission – he has started The Muslim Bedaari Muhim (Muslim Awareness Movement), through which he has been visiting the various districts in Bihar and been educating Muslims about BJP. In just 1 month, he got over 12,000 Muslims to join up as members of BJP, and is sure that by end of March 2015 he will get over 50,000 Muslims to join BJP – and ask each of them to educate other Muslims and get them to join BJP. He truly believes that Muslims should realise that if they want education, development and employment for this generation and the next, then they should join BJP, and he has always worked tirelessly to help Muslims out – built madarsas, computerised over 15 madarsas, financially helped in building over 20 mosques and served Hajjis during his tenure as the Chairman of the Hajj Committee. It is a combination of all of these factors that leads to the Muslims and the people of Bihar having complete faith and trust in him.
- Improving Education – Even though Jamshaid Ashraf has never held a portfolio related to education, he has been strongly involved in a personal capacity in helping the education levels in Bihar. Building madarsas, and computerising over 15 madarsas shows his focus on providing relevant up to date education. He provides 10 full scholarships every year for university education to deserving students who cannot afford it. He has also been pushing to institute strict competency tests for teachers in primary school to ensure that the people moulding the minds of the future generation are properly qualified to do so. There needs to be a higher focus on setting up institutes to train teachers, and there can be collaboration with NGOs to help make this widespread – this will solve 2 problems – it will decrease unemployment levels, and it will increase education levels. He has also undertaken to build a girl’s high school in Balia, Begusarai (his constituency), for which the planning has started.
- Social Welfare – As a philanthropist, social welfare is a topic close to the heart of Jamshaid Ashraf. He has, out of his own personal funds, through NGOs, and by convincing corporates to donate money to charity, engaged in various activities related to Social Welfare. Clear examples of such activities are the distribution of over 500 blankets in Chainpur Chipura, Patna during winter to the poor, or having mass marriages for the poor who cannot afford to have a proper wedding – with over 200 couples tying the knot at one such event. He also sponsors 10 scholarships every year for university education, has installed 4 handpumps in each village of his constituency, provided mobile clinics and dispensaries with free medicines up to Rs. 1 lac per month and provides Humanitarian Aid and Relief during floods. In addition, he has now championed the cause of “Hunar” – even though Mr. Nitish Kumar’s government has completely abandoned it. He believes it is a great program to provide skill training to girls so they can seek employment and self-independence. He is investing his own personal funds in this program, and tying up with NGOs to promote it.
With his focus and drive on the above 5 points, Jamshaid Ashraf is making a real difference in Bihar, and this is why he is so popular with the masses and with everyone involved at the real grassroots level, helping make true improvement. To find out more about what he has done for Bihar, please read about His Contributions
Jamshaid Ashraf strongly believes that the BJP under the guidance of Mr. Narendra Modi shares a very similar agenda and is the best political party to help Bihar improve on all these 5 points.
“Muslims have been misled about BJP, and no leaders in Bihar have patiently educated and convinced them about BJP’s stance towards integration of all communities and development. It is Jamshaid’s mission to get Muslims involved with BJP, and he has been very successful with that mission – he has started The Muslim Bedaari Muhim (Muslim Awareness Movement), through which he has been visiting the various districts in Bihar and been educating Muslims about BJP.”