Controversial Congress leader Imran Masood, known for his anti-Hindu and anti-Modi comments, has been appointed as a secretary in the All India Congress Committee (AICC). Today the AICC announced the appointment of 5 secretaries in charge of different states, and Imran Masood has been made a secretary in-charge of Delhi.
Other appointments of secretaries announced by AICC are Odisha MP Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka for Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand MLA Deepika Pandey Singh for Uttarakhand, Sanjay Dutt from Himachal Pradesh, and Brijlal Khabri for Bihar.
Newly appointed AIIC secretary in-charge of Delhi Imran Masood is a former MLA from Uttar Pradesh of the Congress party, and he is known for threatening to “chop Narendra Modi into pieces” ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Masood was contesting the Lok Sabha election from Saharanpur in UP in 2014, and during an election rally, he had said, “Narendra Modi se kaun ladega? Jo thok ke jawab dena jaane Modi *&*#@ ko.” (Who will fight against Modi? The one who knows how to give it back to this &@*&# Modi).
He had then added, “Who Gujarat samaj raha hai, 4% Musalman hai Gujrat mei, yaha 42% Musalman hai. Yaha Gujarat bana denge, @#$@# ko boti boti kaat denge… choti choti…” (he thinks this is Gujarat, Gujarat has 4% Muslims, here Muslims are 42%, we will make Gujarat here, will chop @#$@# in small pieces).
Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, PM Narendra Modi had evoked the ‘boti boti’ threat of Imran Masood during an election rally in Saharanpur. He had said, “Here (in Saharanpur), there is one individual who threatens to cut [me] into pieces. He is the favourite of the Shehzada of Congress… he (Rahul) loves him (Imran) a lot.” The PM had then said, “Remember, they are the ones who threaten ‘boti-boti’ and we are here to ensure safety and honour of ‘beti-beti’ (every daughter).”
Following his hate speech, Masood was arrested in March 2014. But keeping in tradition with rewarding hate speech, in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, Imran Masood contested on a Congress ticket from Saharanpur’s Nakur seat which he lost to BJP’s Dharam Singh Saini. After that, in June 2017, he had threatened forceful agitations by Dalits and Muslims against the Yogi Adityanath government. Congress too had supported Masood’s stand on the issue. “Imran is our leader and we support the stand that he has taken locally,” Uttar Pradesh Congress President Raj Babbar had said.
Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Imran Masood was made part of the Congress party’s election committee in Uttar Pradesh. He was also made the party candidate for Saharanpur, which he had lost and had come third in terms of votes after BSP and BJP candidates. Masood was also seen in the luxury bus with Priyanka Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Jyotiraditya Scindia during Priyanka Gandhi’s first roadshow in Lucknow in 2019.
Prior to joining Congress, Masood was with Samajwadi Party. He was declared the Lok Sabha candidate for Samajwadi Party from Saharanpur in September 2013. However, in March 2014 he defected to Congress and contested from the Saharanpur seat on a Congress ticket.