All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi charged the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Yogi Adityanath government with persecution of Muslims, including demolition of mosque in Barabanki, and said that the Muslims would give a befitting reply to this anti-Muslim government.

“Since 2014, only Muslims have been killed in UP. It is on record that only mosques and Muslims are being targeted in UP but no political party has so far opposed it,” he said while addressing a rally in Katra locality of Barabanki on Thursday.

Owaisi also raised the issue of razing of a mosque in Barabanki. "Can Yogi Adityanath answer why it violated the Constitution by demolishing the mosque? Muslims pleaded with folded hands that their place of worship should be spared but the administration, under the direction of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, razed the mosque. Not only this, the journalists who highlighted the issue were booked and an FIR was lodged against them,” the AIMIM chief said.

Owaisi said: “Secularism has been deliberately weakened in the country. Dalits are being targeted. Atrocities are being committed against Muslims at the behest of BJP while other parties like Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress have remained mute spectators and they did not speak against CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) or triple talaq.”

He even said that former SP MP from Budaun, Dharmendra Yadav, did not utter a word when a mosque was demolished in Budaun. “This shows the real face of SP,” he said.

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has claimed that his party will emerge as a strong political outfit in the 2022 assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.

Before the meeting, Owaisi met AIMIM workers over tea at the residence of party's youth wing district president Chaudhary Faiz-ur-Rehman. Significantly, after the cancellation of his other programmes, the administration had given permission for a small meeting late on Wednesday night.

Owaisi was only allowed to have a small gathering. Permission was given by the administration for the gathering of a maximum of 50 people with the condition that they followed Covid guidelines.

Owaisi ended his 3-day visit to UP and flew to Hyderabad later in the evening.

Owaisi has claimed that his party, AIMIM, will contest 100 seats in the UP assembly elections. In the last elections, AIMIM had contested from 38 UP assembly constituencies but could not win a single seat. It however did not contest any seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from UP.