FURFURA SHARIF (Hooghly): All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday met Furfura Sharif Pirzada Abbasuddin Siddiqui and announced that his party would support Abbasuddin in the Bengal assembly polls, a move the Trinamool Congress dismissed as a “desperate” bid by “BJP’s B-team” (AIMIM) to gain a toehold among Bengali-speaking Muslims.
After the meeting, which lasted about 90 minutes, Owaisi said he left it to Abbasuddin “to decide on the shape and form this alliance will take. We will stand by his decision.”
Sources indicated that the Abassuddin-AIMIM “alliance” is likely to contest 56 assembly seats in Bengal.
“We have not yet decided whether we will form a political party and fight in alliance with AIMIM or join it,” Abbasuddin said. “It will be decided over the next few days. But we will contest the Bengal polls.” If that happens, it would be a first: no Furfura Sharif Pirzada has contested elections in Bengal.
Owaisi, who flew to Kolkata early on Sunday, was taken to Furfura Sharif by Abbasuddin’s brother, Naushad. After the talks, the AIMIM chief said: “We want to focus on empowerment of the weaker sections and development.” He also brushed off Trinamool’s barb. “AIMIM didn’t contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in Bengal. Why did BJP win 18 seats? Why are people quitting the party and joining BJP? We will contest the Bengal polls will Abbasuddin Saheb,” he said.
Owaisi went to Furfura Sharif because there are “very few Urdu-speaking Muslims in Bengal,” said Trinamool MP Saugata Roy, making the “BJP’s B-team” comment. “They know they can’t make a dent here; that’s why he visited.... They want to consolidate votes for BJP.” Roy refused to read anything “new” in Sunday’s meeting. “He said he would come, and he came. The only thing new about Sunday was that he met Abbasuddin. This will have no impact in Bengal. People will not accept them,” he added.
Trinamool’s Hooghly district president Dilip Yadav said, “In election time, you will find people coming and going. But people in Furfura Sharif know what they have got in the last decade: hospital, lights, better roads, water.”
The Pirzadas of Furfura Sharif, among the holiest pilgrimage sites in Bengal, had publicly stayed away from active politics. That changed ahead of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, when Pirzada Toha Siddiqui spoke effusively for Mamata Banerjee. Furfura Sharif, which is part of Hooghly’s Jangipara assembly segment, had elected either a Congress or a CPM MLA since 1957. In the 2016 assembly polls, Trinamool won this seat for the first time. In the 2019 Lok Sabha, TMC had a lead here.
Toha Siddiqui is now a member of the Furfura Sharif Development Authority. He had met CM Banerjee in Nabanna three weeks ago. Reacting to the Abassuddin-Owaisi meeting, Toha said: “Pirzadas in Furfura Sharif have always stayed away from politics. The Pirzadas of Furfura Sharif are spiritual leaders who preach communal harmony and peace. Communalism has no place here. People will reject these opportunists.” But Pirzada Ibrahim Siddiqui, Toha’s elder brother, said he was with Abbasuddin.
Unlike his uncles, Toha and Ibrahim, Abbasuddin is a new entrant to politics. For the past six months, he has left enough indications of charting a new political path, ignoring the TMC-Congress-Left Front status quo in Bengal. State Congress president Adhir Chowdhury and state assembly opposition leader Abdul Mannan had also met him a few days back. Speaking at the jalsas (spiritual congregations), Abbasuddin had indicated about possible talks with AIMIM.
“Why is Trinamool scared of Owaisi?” said BJP’s Hooghly MP Locket Chatterjee. “It is just a meeting. In a democracy, anyone can meet — or contest elections — anywhere. Is Trinamool scared that even the 30% that was with them earlier not with them anymore? BJP is going to win Bengal in 2021.”