Mamata Banerjee’s biggest dread and alleged “vote cutter of BJP,” is at last in Kolkata. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday commenced his political inning in Bengal with a visit to largest Muslim congregation of the State Furfura Sharif where he met the order’s deputy chief Pir Zada Abbas Siddiqui before expressing his desire to contest Assembly elections in Bengal.
Emerging from a meeting with Siddiqui the AIMIM chief said his party would not only concentrate on Malda and Murshidabad, the two Muslim-majority districts of the State but also other regions, particularly those where the minorities have a decisive presence.
This is Owaisi’s first visit to Bengal following after he announced his plans to contest elections in the state.
Often dismissed by the Chief Minister as “BJP’s vote cutting machine,” Owaisi said “we are a political party and have every right to contest elections anywhere in India… we also have rights to form coalitions for that purpose and no one can stop us from doing so.”
When asked to comment on Banerjee’s recent allegations that he was not a “vote cutter of BJP,” and his flowing would only be limited to the Urdu-speaking minority, the AIMIM leader said, “I am here to meet Siddiqui sahib who is elder to us in experience and I am ready to form an alliance with him in order to work for a common purpose.”
Rejecting the Chief Minister’s charges he said, “I challenge the Trinamool Congress chief to provide answers to my open questions …what was she doing when Gujarat was burning … she should also answer as to how the BJP could win 18 seats from Bengal in the parliamentary elections though we were not in the fray then.”
On his party’s alleged negative role in the Bihar elections he said “empirical evidence shows that in seats where we fought 9 were won by the Gatbandhan, 6 were won by the NDA and we won 5 seats … so how our party could impact the voting pattern the way that is being suggested.”
On the issues his party would like to focus on he said “we will raise a whole lot of issues including under development of Bengal, political empowerment, political partnership (read with the minorities), communal peace etc.”
AIMIM State secretary Zameerul Hasan said “Owaisi wanted to keep the meeting a secret as we were apprehensive that the TMC government would stop him from exiting the airport. However that fortunately did not happen. From Kolkata airport, he went straight to Hooghly to meet Abbas Siddiqui.”
In real terms Bengal has more than 28 percent Muslim votes that influences the voting pattern of more than 100 out of 294 seats. AIMIM’s presence in Bengal may not augur well for the ruling Trinamool Congress which has for the past one decade been thriving primarily on the minority votes.
In the changed polarized circumstances where the difference between the BJP and the TMC in terms of vote percentage is mere 2 percent the Hyderabad outfit’s presence could spell disaster for the ruling outfit experts say.
However, TMC leader Sougato Roy once again iterated that “AIMIM will not be able to do much harm to the TMC as its presence will be confined to a limited Urudu-speaking section.” But when reminded that he was holding meeting with the Furufura Sharif Roy said “the Muslims of Bengal know what Mamata Banerjee has done for them … they will remain with her instead of joining Owaisi who has come to add to the divisive politics that is being played by the BJP… I call upon all the Muslims to unite reject his party and unite behind TMC and Mamata Banerjee.”
