While BJP accuses Owaisi and Mayawati of communal politics in UP, social media rife with two being saffron party’s’ ‘B team’

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 9

While the BJP is accusing All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi and BSP supremo Mayawati of doing “communal politics in the state”, some social media “influencers” have started sending “warnings” to members of the minority community that the two (Owaisi and Mayawati) are the “B-team” of the BJP trying to “divide Muslims” and dent “the traditional vote base” of main rival Samajwadi Party.

Urging Muslims in UP to “learn from West Bengal which did not get influenced by Owaisi” despite “his best intentions to cut Muslim votes so that the BJP could win”, they claimed that the AIMIM chief “is contesting in UP so that the BJP can win”.

This is not the first time the four-time Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad has faced such allegations. He was “single-handedly” held responsible for the defeat of the Grand Alliance in Bihar in 2020 by the RJD. Terming him the “B-team of the BJP-RSS”, senior RJD leader Shivanand Tiwari said that “Owaisi fought at the behest of the BJP in order to defeat the Grand Alliance in Bihar” in “an election that could, otherwise, had the potential to change the politics of the country”.

Beginning his political campaign from Ayodhya, Owaisi on Tuesday said that he had come to UP “to defeat the BJP” and attacked SP, alleging that Muslims had been “cheated” in the name of secularism by parties like it.

“Our first effort is that our Muslim leadership should be developed in the biggest state of the country,” he said addressing a rally at Rasulabad village in the Muslim-dominated Rudauli constituency in Ayodhya. The AIMIM leader urged members of his community not to live “in the shadows. Nineteen per cent (of voters) are Muslims and nine per cent are Yadavs. But the CM will be yours (Yadavs) and we (Muslims) will not even get the job of a peon,” he was quoted as saying.

Owaisi claimed that Yadav voters were not voting for Muslim candidates and said that his party was prepared to contest 100 of the 403 Assembly seats in UP.

The Samajwadi Party, which is relying on the Muslim-Yadav combination to reclaim the state, is currently the top-most challenger to the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP in the state.

Observers say any dent in the traditional vote bank of the Samajwadi Party will only benefit the BJP.

Interestingly, while commending “efforts for Hindu-Muslim communal harmony” at the Muzaffarnagar ‘kisan mahapanchayat’, Mayawati also took on the Samajwadi Party saying “this will certainly help a little in healing the wounds of the horrific riots that took place under the SP government in 2013, but it will also make many uncomfortable.

“Farmers are the pride of the country and the chants of Hindu-Muslim unity from the stage have shaken the political grounds of hatred sown by the BJP. Muzaffarnagar also made people remember the riots during the Congress and SP rules,” she said.

Accusing Owaisi of “communal politics”, BJP Kannauj MP Subrat Pathak said Yogi Adityanath would not allow “Jinnah’s jihadi mentality” to flourish in UP.