Leader of Opposition in Telangana State Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir on Tuesday said that the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen’s secret alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party was no more a secret.
Reacting to Gujarat BJP MLA Yatin Oza’s allegations of MIM’s secret pact with BJP during Bihar elections, Shabbir Ali said that the Congress party had exposed this fact long back. In a media statement, Shabbir Ali said that the MIM has been acting as the ‘Muslim Morcha’ of BJP and Sangh Parivar since last general elections. “In the guise of party’s expansion, MIM fielded its candidates on selective seats so as to divide non-BJP votes. In Maharashtra Assembly elections, MIM contested on 24 seats. Although it won only two seats, it divided Muslim votes in other seats. The division directly helped BJP-Shiv Sena win eight seats. It tried to implement the same strategy in Bihar Assembly elections, but MIM was outrightly rejected by the people of Bihar,” the Congress leader said.
Shabbir Ali asked BJP National President Amit Shah and MIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi to clarify on the meeting which they had before Bihar elections. “MIM contested Bihar elections only to benefit the BJP. If Owaisi was serious, then MIM should have contested in entire Bihar. Initially, MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi announced that his party will contest on all 24 seats in Muslim-dominated Seemanchal. Finally, it contested only on six seats out of 243 constituencies in Bihar. All this was done at the instance of BJP leadership only to polarise elections,” he said.
“Owaisi brothers, alongside Sangh Parivar, are on a mission to divide the country on communal lines. By playing the Hindu-Muslim card, the BJP-MIM combine is aiming at political gains. They were successful in Maharashtra, failed in Bihar and now adopting a similar approach in Uttar Pradesh elections. In Telangana too, both BJP and MIM are supplementing each other,” he said.
Shabbir Ali also accused Asaduddin Owaisi of trying to politicize the issues like ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ and even the arrests made by NIA. “MIM tried to gain political mileage out of the terror attack in Holy Madina. It should have organised a massive protest in Hyderabad against the terror attack in Holy Madina. But it confined itself to a public meeting where speakers delivered irrelevant speeches targetting political parties, especially Congress. They turned the protest meeting into a political event,” he said.
The Congress leader also appealed to the Muslim religious leaders to do a serious introspection on their stand towards MIM, which is acting as an ally of BJP. “Religious leaders should not allow any politician or party to use them as tools. Asaduddin Owaisi apparently held all religious leaders of Hyderabad as hostage and forcing them endorse all his actions,” he alleged. (NSS)