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In Bihar, Owaisi accuses Nitish of helping BJP, blasts RJD
The AIMIM chief on Saturday began his two-day tour of Seemanchal region, where his party had won five seats in the 2020 Bihar assembly polls
AIMIM (All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen) president and Hyderabad MP Asaduudin Owaisi, who began his two-day tour of Bihar’s northeastern Seemanchal region on Saturday, accused chief minister Nitish Kumar of strengthening the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and attacked the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for “luring away” his party MLAs.
CM Kumar’s Janata Dal-United and RJD are the two major constituents of the ruling alliance in Bihar, called the mahagathbandhan.
“History will remember you for strengthening BJP,” Owaisi said while addressing his party workers at Purnia’s Baisi. “When Gujarat was burning, Nitish Kumar was the railway minister,” he said, in an apparent reference to the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Alluding to Nitish Kumar’s comment that AIMIM was a party just for Muslims, Owaisi said, “Nitish Kumar should look within himself. He has so far not come out of the shadows of Kurmi and Koeri castes in Bihar.”
The AIMIM chief was unsparing of RJD too. “Those elected by the people were defeated by the power of money used by the RJD leader,” he said.
In 2020 assembly polls, AIMIM had won five seats in Seemanchal, an impoverished region that has high concentration of Muslims. Last year, four of them switched to RJD.
“Neither (union home minister) Amit Shah nor Nitish Kumar raised the issues of Seemanchal’s development in their public meetings held in Purnia,” Owaisi said.
The AIMIM chief raised the issue of Seemanchal Development Council (SDC) and said his party would continue to fight for a civil airport in Purnia, road connectivity and flood mitigation in the region.
Muslims constitute 30-70% of population in different areas of Seemanchal, which comprises four districts of Purnia, Katihar, Araria and Kishanganj. The region has 24 assembly and four Lok Sabha seats, with 10 Muslim MLAs and one Muslim MP.
Meanwhile, local RJD leader Neeraj Kumar Yadav, a former MLA from Barari seat in Katihar district, said, “We won’t allow the AIMIM agenda to take roots in Seemanchal where Muslims and Hindus live in togetherness. We have started our campaign to blunt Owaisi’s edge by placing reality before the people, especially in places where Muslims are in substantial numbers.”
Any gain by AIMIM in Seemanchal is bad news for RJD, which heavily relies on the support of Muslims and Yadavs electorally.
