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AIMIM members join TMC in Bengal; defection staged, alleges Owaisi’s party
After the recent elections in Bihar - where the AIMIM won five seats and was accused by the Congress of splitting Muslim votes to help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – Owaisi announced that his party would contest the Bengal polls.
Twenty one West Bengal members of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM), a party headed by Asaduddin Owaisi joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the presence of two senior ministers on Monday, days after ruling party leaders said the Hyderabad-based party was not a force to reckon with in the assembly polls due in about five months. Among those who joined the TMC were several lawyers and teachers.
After the recent elections in Bihar - where the AIMIM won five seats and was accused by the Congress of splitting Muslim votes to help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – Owaisi announced that his party would contest the Bengal polls.
“Anwar Pasha, the main functionary of the AIMIM in Bengal, and several other members from different districts are joining us because they do not accept the AIMIM’s line of action,” Minister Bratya Basu said at the TMC’s state headquarters.
“Some people, irrespective of whether they carry the green flag or the saffron flag, are out to destroy peace. After Bihar, these forces want to enter West Bengal. But the politics they preach is not part of Bengal’s culture. Bengal is our strongest fort. No other chief minister hit the streets in protest against the citizenship amendment law and the National Register of Citizens the way Banerjee did,” said Pasha.
“Banerjee is accused of practicing the politics of appeasement. It is not true. If she has given allowance to Imams she has given the same to Hindu priests as well. The development in Bihar is disturbing. AIMIM helped the BJP. My advice to Owaisi is that he should not enter Bengal. If he tries to do so we will stop him with all our strength,” Pasha said.
Syed Asim Waqar, the national spokesperson of the AIMIM and the leader in charge of the organization in West Bengal, said, “We have millions of members in West Bengal and Pasha is just one of them. He stayed aloof for almost a year and did not take part in any activity. He is a traitor. He tried to contact the TMC earlier also.”
Reiterating that the AIMIM will contest the coming polls, Waqar said, “While addressing a rally in central Kolkata in July, 2019, I said Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee were planting their men in our party so that a defection could be staged prior to the polls to portray that AIMIM has weakened. The rest of those who joined the TMC today were TMC workers posing as AIMIM members.”
“Waqar is just the national spokesperson of the party. In Bengal, Muslims in every corner knows who Anwar Pasha is and who worked for years to form the AIMIM’s base. Those who joined the TMC today established the AIMIM in Bengal,” Pasha said in reply to Waqar’s comment.
Bengal’s Muslim population stood at 27.01% during the 2011 census and is projected to have increased to around 30% now.
According to the last census report, the Muslim population was predominantly high in the districts of Murshidabad (66.28%), Malda (51.27%) and North Dinajpur (49.92%). In South 24 Parganas, located adjacent to Kolkata, it was 35.57%, while in Birbhum, the figure was 37.06%.
