Around mid-February, a prominent Hindi news channel carried a report which claimed that prominent Shia leader Kalbe Jawwad had extolled the BJP while condemning its main rival, the Samajwadi Party (SP). A day later, an independent non-profit portal, the Muslim Mirror, published a counter-report, “Battle for UP: Shias in Lucknow upset with this BJP,” rubbishing the narrative that the Shias were likely to support the BJP in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. The story said that the Shias and Sunnis have come together to defeat the BJP, even though in the past leaders, like Lalji Tandon and Atal Bihari Vajpayee have reached out to the Shia community. “Ban on rituals during Muharram, crackdown on illegal slaughter houses that impacted the sale of meat, police atrocities on anti-CAA protestors and now the hijab controversy have made the Shia community in Lucknow give a second thought to their support to the BJP,” wrote Muslim Mirror, underlining that recent political developments have brought the two Muslim sects closer.