Mamata Banerjee “Most Secular”: Ex-Leader From Asaduddin Owaisi’s Party

Kolkata:

Mamata Banerjee is “the most secular leader” within the nation, quite a few ex-AIMIM leaders mentioned Monday as they joined the Trinamool Congress in Bengal and promised that neither the BJP nor AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi would make any political positive factors forward of subsequent yr’s Assembly polls.

“Mamata Banerjee is the most secular leader in India. She has championed the Muslim cause (and) has been criticised for it. She is the only leader in the country who was on the road to opposed NRC (national register of citizens),” Anwar Hasan Pasha, who led the 20-strong AIMIM staff that switched sides on the Trinamool’s headquarters in Kolkata, mentioned.

Referring to the Bihar election, he additionally warned Mr Owaisi towards contesting in Bengal.

“If Mr Owaisi comes to Bengal, we will stand up against him. What we saw in Bihar will not be allowed in Bengal. The politics of divide and rule, and polarisation. Mr Asaduddin Owaisi polarised the voters in Bihar. My advice to Mr Owaisi is… don’t come to Bengal,” Mr Pasha mentioned.

Trinamool minister Bratya Bose, who handed Mr Pasha the get together flag, described him as “the key AIMIM leader in Bengal” and mentioned he and the others had been “inspired by Mamata Banerjee”.

“Inspired by the work of Mamata Banerjee, members of AIMIM, which has a communal agenda, decided they had enough of such politics and joined the Trinamool today,” Mr Bose mentioned, claiming that all the get together in Bengal would quickly comply with go well with.

That reasonably grand assertion, in addition to Mr Pasha’s standing inside his former get together, have been swiftly dismissed by Syed Asim Waqar, the AIMIM’s Bengal observer.

“Mr Pasha was just another member, who had been inactive for over a year. His exit is no loss,” he mentioned, and alleged that the Trinamool had been planting moles inside his get together for over a yr.

“Now they (the moles) are exposed,” he declared.

Earlier the BJP’s Saumitra Khan mentioned the AIMIM, which is commonly referred to as the BJP’s “vote katua (vote cutter) party” – as a result of it divides the minority vote – had no tangible presence in Bengal.

“There was no AIMIM in Bengal anyway. People with Trinamool were with AIMIM and now AIMIM members are back in the main party,” he mentioned.

The Congress’s Pradip Bhattacharya is not satisfied and has alleged that the get together’s intention is to “break the opposition parties so that the BJP benefits and wins in this election”. “If Mamata Banerjee is fighting against the BJP, why is she accepting these people?” he demanded.

Mr Pasha, 49, instructed NDTV earlier that he had began working with the AIMIM in 2013 and that its sphere of affect prolonged throughout the Malda, Murshidabad and North and South Dinajpur districts of Bengal, which adjoin Bihar’s Seemanchal.

All 5 seats that the get together claimed within the Bihar election have been from the Seemanchal district.

Support can be rising within the Hooghly and North and South 24 Parganas districts, he claimed.

When Mr Owaisi introduced he would discipline candidates in Bengal, analysts mentioned the transfer might divide the minority vote and damage the Trinamool, which pulls the Muslim vote nearly en bloc.

A splintered minority vote would imply fewer votes for the Trinamool. Therefore, dismantling the AIMIM in Bengal and getting its members to hitch the Trinamool is a masterstroke, analysts mentioned.

However, the get together’s Bengal observer has performed down such ideas, claiming there have been “lakhs and lakhs of workers”.

“Pasha promised the Trinamool 5,000 workers. Where were they?” Zamirual Hasan, an AIMIM Bengal member and a rival of Mr Pasha, requested.

Asaduddin Owaisi, who’s presently occupied with the celebrated Hyderabad municipal polls (scheduled for subsequent week) is prone to go to Bengal a while subsequent month, Mr Waqar mentioned.