The loud-mouthed Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Unnao in Uttar Pradesh, Sakshi Maharaj on Thursday conceded that the presence of Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen helped his party in Bihar in the Assembly election held in Oct-Nov last year.
He expects that the presence of AIMIM in West Bengal may help his party win the Assembly election in the coming summer as well as in Uttar Pradesh next year. Owaisi visited West Bengal on Jan 3 and met the ‘spiritual’ personality of Furfurashareef in Hooghly district, Abbas Siddiqui, with the view to fighting election jointly. Both the leaders have spoken strongly against the Trinamool Congress led government of Mamata Banerjee.
Owaisi on January 12 paid a visit to Azamgarh and other places in East UP where he is likely to fight election in alliance with Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party. Owaisi also met Rajbhar who was a minister in the Yogi cabinet before parting ways with him on the eve of the 2019 Lok Sabha election. He was subsequently dismissed by Yogi from the cabinet on 20 May, 2019.
The BJP MP’s remarks sparked off another round of media attack on Owaisi of being the B-team of the saffron party.
While the BJP in Uttar Pradesh as well as West Bengal will be pleased with the presence of Owaisi in the fray as it would divide the Muslim votes, the Trinamool Congress has come down heavily on him.
But the party leaders are confident that Owaisi’s presence will have no impact whatsoever on the poll outcome. It needs to be mentioned that in the Bihar Assembly election the NDA just managed to get 125 seats in the House of 243 while the RJD-led Grand Alliance won 110. The AIMIM bagged five seats in Muslim-dominated Seemanchal belt. Not only that, the party helped the BJP-led NDA win several seats because of counter-polarisation caused by Owaisi’s rhetoric.
