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AIMIM to contest in Bengal under Abbas Siddiqui’s leadership, confirms Asaduddin Owaisi

AIMIM has already declared that it would field candidates mainly in two Dinajpur districts, Maldah, Murshidabad and the two 24 Parganas.

AIMIM to contest in Bengal under Abbas Siddiqui’s leadership, confirms Asaduddin Owaisi

Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday confirmed that his party AIMIM will contest in the West Bengal Assembly Elections under the leadership of Abbas Siddiqui.

“We will move forward in Bengal under the leadership of Abbas Siddiqui. We will support whatever decision he takes,” Owaisi said after his meeting with Siddiqui.

However, if Siddiqui will join AIMIM or float his own party and form an alliance with it is yet to be known.

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Owaisi, who had confirmed that he would field candidates in Bengal after his party’s success in Bihar elections last year, is on a two-day tour of the poll-bound state.

AIMIM’s advent in Bengal, many believe, will have an adverse impact on Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) minority vote bank. However, the West Bengal’s governning party has refuted such speculations.

“Owaisi won’t have any effect in West Bengal. He is an Urdu-speaking Muslim and majority of Muslims in Bengal are Bengali-speaking. That’s why he is meeting Abbas Siddiqui,” veteran TMC leader Saugata Roy was quoted as saying by Anandabazar Patrika.

The Hyderabad-headquartered party had declared that it would field candidates mainly in two Dinajpur districts, Maldah, Murshidabad and the two 24 Parganas districts due to the inflated Muslim populations there.

Interestingly, North Dinajpur borders with Bihar’s Seemanchal region which was the centre of AIMIM’s accomplishments there.

Ever since the results had come out in Bihar AIMIM was victim of a ferocious attack, mostly by Congress leaders, who called it BJP’s “B-Team”. It was circulated that they cut away Mahagathbandhan’s vote share which indirectly helped the NDA.

Once again on Sunday, Owaisi hit back at the claim that he was indirectly supporting BJP. Attacking Mamata Banerjee, he said, “If Mamata Banerjee is worried about the minorities so much, where was she when Gujarat was burning?”

“She is failing to stop BJP. So many leader from TMC are defecting to BJP. Why can’t she stop them? Actually, TMC is strengthening BJP. AIMIM did not contest in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Yet BJP won 18 seats.”

Alongside Siddiqui, Owaisi on Sunday met Pirzada Naushad Siddiqui, Prizada Baijid Amin, Sabbir Gaffar, among other minority leaders.

Siddiqui, a Pirzada (religious leader) from Futura Sharif, who was once a vocal supporter of Mamata Banerjee-led TMC, has been speaking out against the state government over a host of issues of late.

A rumour that he is planning to float his own minority outfit has been grabbing attention in sections Bengal politics in recent time.

However, a report by Bengali daily Sangbad Pratidin on Sunday stated that Siddiqui might contest the Bengal election from an AIMIM ticket.

Meanwhile, AIMIM had been able to strengthen it’s organisation at the ground level to an impressive extent since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The party workers wer further bolstered by the Bihar success.

But large-scale defections to TMC in the last one month or so has hit the party’s organisation strength at its core. Several senior leaders from AIMIM’s Bengal brigade changed loyalty and took refuge under the shadow of Mamata Banerjee.

Thus, Owaisi’s visit to Siddiqui becomes relevant as it comes in the backdrop of his own party leaders’ betrayal and the Pirzada youth’s rise as a minority leader.

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