Lucknow: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and the Congress only want votes from Muslims but hesitate to give them election tickets, Hyderabad politician Asaduddin Owaisi said on Saturday, hotly refuting allegations that he only wanted to help the BJP in Uttar Pradesh by splitting the minority community’s vote in next month’s polls.
Assadudin in an interview with NDTV said “The so-called secular people just want Muslims to lay the carpet and raise zindabad slogans. If you want tickets, you have to beg… This is their hypocrisy, double standards,”
“You call someone from Saharanpur, take photos and then you betray him?” he said about the Samajwadi Party’s tumultuous relationship with Muslim leader Imran Masood.
“A Maulana joins Congress. On your channel, a senior leader of Congress says that I have nothing to do with him,” Mr Owaisi added, referring to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra distancing herself from controversial leader TR Khan.
“The MP from Badaun (Sanghmitra Maurya) is still in BJP but her father [SP] Maurya sahab is in the Samajwadi Party… can’t they see all this? People of UP aren’t blind. Whatever you do is kosher but if we talk about justice and representation of Muslims, then you have a problem?” he said.
“Yesterday, when Akhilesh was asked about dropping Muslim candidates, he referenced ‘Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb’. Does that mean you will drop your party’s candidates and not give a single seat to Muslims from the Muzaffarnagar district? This is their jumla,” Mr Owaisi said.
“In 2019, when Amit Shah brought a bill to amend the UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act), based on which NIA (National Investigation Agency) inspector sitting in Delhi can declare any Muslim a terrorist. And you supported it. Today you are trying to teach us? Where were you during the protests against the Citizenship Act? What did you say on the Triple Talaq law?” the 52-year-old said.
Fervently denying charges that he was the “B-Team” of the BJP, he said, “Did [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi ji come to a wedding in my house? And when he did, was the Yadav family of my household falling over each other to take photos? And was it me who stood in parliament in 2019 and blessed Modi ji to return to power?”
“I did not fight 2019. You got 75 per cent of the Muslim vote and yet only you, your father and three Muslims won – was that because of me? You don’t have the guts to say why these thekedars did not get anyone else’s vote? That of Yadavs, the backward classes and the Hindus?” he said.
The MP also announced his plans for the Uttar Pradesh elections: “We have formed an alliance with Babu Singh Kushwaha, Waman Meshram, and others. We have decided to fight for the weak. If we win, Babu Singh Kushwaha will be the Chief Minister for 2.5 years and someone from the Dalit community will be Chief Minister for the other 2.5. There will be three Deputy Chief Ministers including a Muslim and members of backward classes.”
“In the last five years, we have worked a lot to strengthen our base in the state. We have a very good position and are confident the people of UP will choose us,” he said.
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) party chief said he wanted to see Uttar Pradesh’s 19 per cent Muslim population get fair representation.
“They say PM is the biggest leader of backward classes. Yogi ji is considered a leader of Thakurs. Akhilesh is said to be a leader of Yadavs. Anupriya Patel is called a leader of Kurmis… this is the reality of politics of UP that every section has its leader, they have seen political empowerment. If any community has not seen that, that’s the part we are trying to represent through our alliance,” Mr Owaisi said.
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