More than half the voters in India's city of Rampur are Muslim, but its member of parliament is a staunch supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's muscular Hindu-first agenda. It is a situation repeated across Hindu-majority India, where many view victory for Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in upcoming general elections as a near certainty -- and Muslim candidates a recipe for voting defeat. While India's 220 million Muslims make up 14 percent of the 1.4 billion population, Muslim representatives in parliament have almost halved to under five percent since the 1970s. "For the first time since 1947 we have a sad spectacle of a union government, not having a single Muslim representative," says author and journalist, Ziya Us Salam. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES