Lucknow: Secular parties want Muslim leaders to be their slaves, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi has claimed, rejecting allegations that his party helps the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by splitting Opposition votes.
Speaking to ThePrint, Owaisi, whose AIMIM has tied up with OBC party Apna Dal (Kamerawadi) and smaller parties like the Rashtra Uday Party (RUP) of Babu Ram Pal and the Pragatisheel Manav Samaj Party (PMSP) of Prem Chand Bind for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, called the INDIA bloc’s claim that it stands for marginalised PDA groups “a joke”.
PDA stands Picchde, Dalit, and Alpsankhyak or the backward, Dalit, and minority group — the same section that the AIMIM-led PDM (for Picchde, Dalit, and Muslims) Nyay Morcha claims to represent.
“They have given this name (PDA) in a non-serious way. Why didn’t you give a ticket (to a Muslim) in Rajya Sabha? Who stopped you?” the Hyderabad MP asked.
In a wide-ranging interview with ThePrint, Owaisi spoke about his party’s object of defeating the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the possibility of an alliance with the Congress in Telangana, and his suspicions on the death of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari. Here are excerpts:
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‘Muslims are politically invisible’
According to Owaisi, while the BJP doesn’t give tickets to Muslims, the INDIA bloc also remains silent about issues concerning them. As a result, Muslims are politically invisible, he said.
The Opposition does nothing for Muslims and doesn’t want to see them in leadership positions. As an example, he pointed to the Samajwadi Party’s (SP’s) decision to not give a ticket to its Moradabad MP, S.T. Hasan.
This, he said, was like “humiliating someone publicly”.
“You made a tamasha. This is just a way to show that we are chaudharys (protectors) of Muslims,” he added.
He further said: “If someone’s house is torn down with a bulldozer, they (the Opposition) sit silently, if someone is shot, there is no reaction. If someone is killed over meat, there is no reaction…the limit was crossed that there was an attempt to humiliate their own party MP from Moradabad, S.T. Hasan.”
He also said he wondered why the allegation of “dividing Muslim votes” was never levelled against the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), neither of which had made significant gains in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
While Congress won two seats in that election, the BSP could score only one. “It is simply because only the AIMIM is talking about the empowerment of Muslims,” he said.
However, he made it clear that the AIMIM’s object was to beat the BJP, especially in the party citadel and his own seat, Hyderabad. The BJP has been AIMIM’s principal opposition there since 1984, he said.
“Inshallah, this time too, we will defeat the BJP. There’s no doubt.”
Questioning his critics, he said that despite the larger Opposition’s failure to stop the BJP, it was the AIMIM that was being watched and scrutinised constantly.
“Narendra Modi got 31 percent vote for the majority community in 2014. This rose to 37 percent in 2019. Am I responsible for this? Not a single Muslim MP has won in Gujarat since 1984. Who is responsible for this? In the Indian Parliament, only 27 Muslim MPs win, which is only 4 percent of the population. Will you hold me responsible for this too?”
His meeting with Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy after the Congress party’s sweep of the state last December led to speculation of the AIMIM’s possible alliance with the party. But Owaisi said it was a congratulatory visit.
“When the result came and Telangana’s public gave him a mandate, I congratulated him and he spoke to me. He asked me if any work needed to be done in Hyderabad. I told him there was a lot,” he said.
He did not, however, reject an alliance with the Congress outright, saying only he didn’t think that was the case “as of now”. “As far as the other 16 constituencies of Telangana are concerned, it will be our effort that BJP be stopped there,” he added.
Talking about UP, he said the PDM (Pichhde, Dalit, and Muslim) alliance with Apna Dal (K) and others was to provide “a strong alternative to the public before the 2027 state assembly polls”. He also invited OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya and Dalit leader and Bhim Army chief Chandra Shekhar Azad to join the alliance.
While the former is fighting the election from Kushinagar as a candidate for the Rashtriya Shoshit Samaaj Party, the latter is contesting from Nagina.
Significantly, Apna Dal (K) chief leader Pallavi Patel had said on 1 April that her party had allied with the AIMIM “with blessings from” Maurya, sparking speculations that he could join the front.
“We will welcome them. Let’s see what happens. If they come with us, it will send a strong message against NDA, Narendra Modi and INDIA alliance,” he said.
On Mukhtar Ansari’s death
During his interview, Owaisi also cast doubts on the death of gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari. The BSP ex-legislator, who had 65 criminal cases against him and eight convictions, had been unwell and died of what authorities said was cardiac arrest in UP’s Banda jail on 28 March.
However, his family, whom Owaisi met Wednesday, claim he was slow-poisoned.
Ansari’s death came a year after gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf were shot dead while they were being brought for a court hearing.
In his interview, the Hyderabad MP questioned the UP government’s decision to send Ansari back to jail just after his discharge from a hospital. He also wondered why the government did not comply with the family’s request for a post-mortem by an independent set of experts.
Ansari’s family, he said, had repeatedly been saying that his life was in danger and had even filed a petition in the Supreme Court last December seeking more security. “The UP government said that it wouldn’t happen and they would provide security (to Mukhtar). The family’s apprehensions have now been proven true,” he said.
This, he said, is the second death in judicial custody, referring to Ahmed’s death.
“An ex-MP who was sentenced by the court and his brother (Atiq Ahmed and Ashraf) were shot dead in police presence. Now, this family is saying he has been given slow poison. We can’t discard (these statements),” he said.
What happened was “very wrong”, he said, claiming that the fundamental right to life had been “snatched way” in the case.
“Once, you open this door, it can never be closed. Today, it has happened with him, tomorrow, it will be someone else. Where will this end? And where did the rule of law go?” he asked.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)