Ashish Shelar is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from Mumbai, Maharashtra and currently serves as the Minister for Information Technology and Cultural Affairs in the state government. He is known for publicly propagating conspiracy theories about Muslims and dissenters, supporting the economic boycott of Muslims and pushing the BJP’s Hindutva agenda.

In October 2020, Shelar accused the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena’s Hindutva ideology of having been “adulterated” in the company of its new allies, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress, and the party now needed a “certificate” on Hindutva ideology from the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

In January 2023, Shelar attended an event organized by the Sakal Hindu Samaj, an umbrella body of Hindutva organizations, in Mumbai where calls were made for the economic boycott of Muslim-owned businesses as well as laws against religious conversions and alleged “Love Jihad,” a conspiracy theory propagated by Hindutva groups that Muslim men seduce Hindu women in order to convert them to Islam.

In July 2025, Shelar claimed that the ban on plaster to make idols was a conspiracy against Hindu festivals by the opposition parties supported “Urban Naxals,” a controversial term for anti-establishment protesters and left-wing or liberal dissenters. He urged the audience to celebrate Ganeshtosav with pomp and show.

In the same month, Shelar compared attacks on non-Marathi speaking migrants in Mumbai to the Pahalgam terrorist attack in Jammu & Kashmir where people were targeted based on religion, suggesting that the victims in both cases were “Hindus” during a press conference in Mumbai. “In Pahalgam, they shot people after asking their religion. Here, they beat up innocent Hindus just for the language they speak,” Shelar said amid the controversy of imposing Hindi as a mandatory language in schools.

In November 2025, Shelar accused the opposition political parties Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of Muslim appeasement, claiming that over 250,000 Muslim names appeared multiple times in Muslim-dominated areas’ electoral rolls, during a press conference. He attacked opposition leaders, stating that they only questioned Hindu and Dalit voters while duplicate Muslim voters were not mentioned since the party had benefited from them during the elections. He claimed that a “fake narrative” had been set up by the opposition about “vote chori” (vote theft) and called it “Vote Jihad,” referring to a conspiracy theory propagated by Hindutva groups that Muslims were using democratic participation as a weapon against Hindus.

Shelar’s social media posts cover his activities as a BJP member, while praising other BJP leaders.