Meerut:
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday took aim at Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav over his planned visit to the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. He said Muslims had prayed for centuries at the Babri Masjid, which stood on that site until it was demolished in 1992.
“Akhilesh is going to the place where we prayed for 400 years,” Owaisi said at a public meeting in Meerut, while also mentioning ASP leader Chandrashekhar Azad’s support for people seeking to offer namaz in Nagina. It was the first rally of the Samajik Parivartan Morcha, the new alliance of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and the Azad Samaj Party (ASP), which sees itself as an alternative to the ruling BJP-led NDA and the main opposition SP and Congress. The Muslim-Dalit combination seeks to carve out a new political space in a state that goes to the polls in less than half a year, even as the SP and Congress seek to consolidate those votes as well.
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On December 12, Akhilesh Yadav is to visit the Ram Mandir, which was built after the Supreme Court, in 2019, awarded the land to the Hindu side. It will be his first visit since the temple’s consecration in January 2024. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has said Yadav is welcome but should first apologise to devotees of Lord Ram. He was referring to the 1990 firing on a Hindu group trying to reach the site, when Akhilesh’s father Mulayam Singh Yadav was chief minister.
Owaisi asked whether Yadav had visited places where mosques and madrasas had been demolished. He also turned the SP’s PDA slogan, for pichhde (backward classes), Dalit and alpsankhyak (minorities), into a jibe. “Akhilesh Yadav talks about PDA… This is what PDA actually means – ‘Palat Diya Akhilesh’,” he said, meaning ‘Akhilesh shall be toppled’.
He raised the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots to attack the SP. “When he was chief minister, the Muzaffarnagar massacre happened in 2013. 50,000 people were driven out of their homes,” Owaisi said, mindful that he was speaking in the heart of western UP. He said the SP had done nothing despite having 47 Muslim MLAs, while Yadav “was watching song-and-dance in Saifai”. He also alleged that the SP government later demolished the relief camps.
Owaisi reminded the Congress of the 1987 killings in Meerut. “On May 22, 1987, in this very Meerut, 42 Muslims were massacred in Hashimpura. The government was Congress’s. Ask your grandfathers,” he said to the audience.
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Akhilesh Yadav has said Dalits and Muslims should vote for whichever party can defeat the BJP. Owaisi rejected this and asked whether the SP had beaten the BJP in 2014, 2017, 2019 or 2022.
Without naming Adityanath or Yadav, he said an alliance of “those with moustaches and beards” would hurt “the clean-head and the clean-shaven”.
Owaisi and Azad’s parties have drawn a blank in previous Assembly polls in UP.
Owaisi further said, “We will no longer bow our heads before any political party, nor will we go begging to anyone, nor will we lay down carpets for anyone anymore,” backing Azad, the Nagina MP, as the alliance’s chief ministerial candidate.
“People ask me, ‘Asaduddin Owaisi, why did you shake hands with Chandrashekhar Azad?’ To them I respond: ‘I have not merely shaken hands; our hearts have united’,” he said.
Citing a report, Owaisi claimed that about 75 per cent of nearly 670 hate speeches documented across the country took place in Uttar Pradesh. He alleged that police encounters had hit Muslims disproportionately. He also named the killings of gang leaders Vikas Dubey, Sumit Gurjar and Pushpendra Yadav, who were Hindus, to show that his party opposed every encounter. “There will be no rule by gun, but rule by law… The khaki uniform will be held accountable,” he said.
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Owaisi promised a farm loan waiver if the alliance won and sought higher sugarcane prices. He also demanded a high court bench in western Uttar Pradesh.
Owaisi recalled that the 1857 uprising against British rule began in Meerut and said it was fought during Ramzan. He suggested that polling next year could also fall in the holy month.
Owaisi and Azad announced the morcha in Lucknow and said it would contest all 403 seats. AIMIM contested 95 seats in 2022 and did not win any, and the ASP contested about 20 but drew a blank too.
