Anwar Pasha took 20 former AIMIM members to Trinamool today
Calcutta:
Mamata Banerjee is “the most secular leader” in the country, several former AIMIM leaders said on Monday when they joined the Trinamool Congress in Bengal and promised that neither the BJP nor AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi would make political progress before next year. . Assembly surveys.
“Mamata Banerjee is the most secular leader in India. She has championed the Muslim cause (and) has been criticized for it. She is the only leader in the country who was on the path of opposing the NRC (national registry of citizens).” Anwar Hasan Pasha, who led the 20-member AIMIM team that switched sides at Trinamool headquarters in Kolkata, said.
Referring to the Bihar elections, he also warned Mr. Owaisi against participation in Bengal.
“If Mr Owaisi comes to Bengal, we will confront him. What we saw in Bihar will not be allowed in Bengal. The politics of divide and conquer, and polarization. Mr Asaduddin Owaisi polarized the voters in Bihar. My advice to Mr. Owaisi is … don’t come to Bengal, “Pasha said.
Trinamool Minister Bratya Bose, who presented Pasha with the party flag, described him as “the key leader of AIMIM in Bengal” and said that he and the others had been “inspired by Mamata Banerjee”.
“Inspired by the work of Mamata Banerjee, the members of AIMIM, who have a community agenda, decided they were fed up with that policy and joined Trinamool today,” said Bose, stating that the entire party in Bengal would soon follow suit.
Syed Asim Waqar, the Bengal observer for AIMIM, quickly dismissed that rather grandiose claim, as well as Mr. Pasha’s status within his old party.
“Mr. Pasha was just another member, who had been inactive for more than a year. His departure is not a loss,” he said, alleging that Trinamool had been planting moles within his party for more than a year.
“Now they (the moles) are exposed,” he declared.
Earlier, Saumitra Khan of BJP said that the AIMIM, which is often called BJP “vote Katua The party (vote cutter) “- because it divides the minority vote – did not have a tangible presence in Bengal.
“Anyway, there was no AIMIM in Bengal. People with Trinamool were with AIMIM and now the AIMIM members are back in the main game,” he said.
Pradip Bhattacharya from Congress is unconvinced and has argued that the party’s intention is “to break the opposition parties so that the BJP benefits and wins in these elections.” “If Mamata Banerjee is fighting the BJP, why does she accept these people?” he demanded.
Pasha, 49, previously told NDTV that he had started working with AIMIM in 2013 and that his sphere of influence stretched across Bengal’s Malda, Murshidabad, and North and South Dinajpur districts, which adjoin Seemanchal in Bihar. .
The five seats the party claimed in the Bihar elections were from the Seemanchal district.
Support is also growing in the Hooghly and North and South 24 Parganas districts, he said.
When Owaisi announced that he would run candidates in Bengal, analysts said the move could split the minority vote and hurt Trinamool, which attracts the Muslim vote almost en bloc.
A fragmented minority vote would mean fewer votes for Trinamool. Therefore, dismantling AIMIM in Bengal and getting its members to join Trinamool is a masterstroke, analysts said.
However, the party’s Bengal observer has downplayed those thoughts, claiming there were “lakhs and lakhs of workers.”
“Pasha promised the Trinamool workers 5,000. Where were they?” Zamirual Hasan, a member of AIMIM Bengal and Pasha’s rival, asked.
Asaduddin Owaisi, who is currently busy with Hyderabad’s prestigious municipal elections (scheduled for next week), is likely to visit Bengal sometime next month, Waqar said.
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