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Asaduddin Owaisi aims to test political waters in poll-bound UP with a three-day visit

He will start his visit from Ayodhya

PTI1_4_2018_000118A PTI

AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi introduced some fresh twist in Uttar Pradesh politics on Thursday by announcing a three-day visit to the state, to start from Ayodhya.

Owaisi, who has been buoyed by his party’s success in the Bihar polls where it won five seats, said he would continue to maintain that there was a mosque in Ayodhya which was demolished by the BJP and the Sangh family on December 6, 1992. “Had the mosque not fallen, the decision of the Supreme Court would have been different," he said.

Athar Husain, spokesperson of the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation said, “This is an open challenge to the judicial process. The overwhelming response of the Muslim intelligentsia (religious and academic) has been to accept the decision. Owaisi is a Hyderabadi politician who will never understand the DNA of Awadh where Hindus and Muslims fought shoulder to shoulder against the British. He should focus on addressing the rising hate crimes in Telangana”.

The IICF is the body formed to oversee the construction of the mosque complex in Dhannipur—on a five acre piece of land that was given by the UP government subsequent to the SC order on the Ayodhya title suit.

The AIMIM leader will reach Ayodhya on September 7. He will hold a public meeting at Rudauli and another one in Sultanpur on September 8. He will be in Barabanki on November 9.

He hopes to cobble together the vote of Muslims, most backwards and the Dalits. This makes him aim for a slice of share of the votes of all the major players—the Samajwadi Party (SP), the ruling BJP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

However, if Owaisi manages to mount a credible challenge with strong candidates, the split of votes he achieves is to cause most benefit or least harm to the BJP.  Thus, the perception that he plays as the BJP’s ‘B’ team. Owaisi denies this, and says in fact that it is the Congress which helps the BJP the most.

In January this year, Owaisi had visited the state, specifically going to Azamgarh. He was accompanied by Om Prakash Rajbhar, president of the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party.

There is some speculation that Owaisi could cobble together a united front of the opposition parties—the Bhagidari Sankalp Morcha—to take on BJP in the upcoming UP assembly polls. Owaisi had earlier questioned the Samajwadi Party’s ability to take on the BJP, saying that the M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) combination of votes that the party banked on, will no longer work in the state.

Like the other parties, Owaisi too is hoping to gather the non-Yadav OBC votes. Thus, the push to bring together the numerous castes (eg. Nishad, Vishwakarma) who are individually insignificant, but together form almost one fifth of the state’s votes.

The three-day visit will help Owaisi test the political waters a little better.

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