New Delhi: Despite All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi vehemently denying rumours that the BJP has propped him up to contest the Bihar elections in four key Muslim-dominated Seemanchal districts, he is learnt to have met Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, which appeared to indicate that the NDA alliance hopes to divide Muslim votes in the state.
Sources noted that Mr Owaisi’s meeting with the Prime Minister holds immense political significance, given that the AIMIM announced earlier this week that it will put up Assembly poll candidates in Bihar’s Kishanganj, Katihar, Araria and Purnea districts (known as Seemanchal), where the BJP has traditionally been on a weak wicket.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday attacked the top leaders of the grand secular alliance, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, accusing them of destroying the late Ram Manohar Lohia’s legacy by aligning with the Congress in Bihar polls and failing to develop the state in the 25 years that they were in power.
Amid the verbal duel between the NDA and JD(U)-RJD combine, the meeting between Mr Owaisi and Mr Modi comes in the backdrop of frayed nerves within the NDA over its prospects in the politically sensitive state.
Within the Union Cabinet too there is a feeling that the BJP has to do a lot more hard work than merely ride on Narendra Modi’s charisma if it is to succeed in Bihar. Considered as the traditional stronghold of the RJD and JD(U), the four Seemanchal districts have around 24 Assembly seats with a large Muslim population. Ever since Mr Owaisi announced his party’s intention of contesting the polls from this region, the JD(U)-RJD alliance has been claiming that he is doing so at the behest of the BJP, as it might critically divide Muslim votes.
The AIMIM won two seats in the Maharashtra polls in October last year, but had severely damaged the prospects of the Congress-NCP alliance in several seats by cutting into its Muslim votebank.
Sources added that Mr Owaisi’s meeting with Mr Modi (whom the AIMIM chief considers a bitter political rival) also indicates the nervousness within the NDA camp, where the general feeling is that given the pressure from allies like the LJP and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha for more seats based on casteist lines, the NDA will not have it that easy at the hustings.
Mr Owaisi on his part denied allegations that he is being propped up by the BJP, and earlier this week claimed the JD(U) and RJD were bereft of any strategy to take on the NDA and therefore were busy targeting him and his party.
Earlier Thursday, while criticising the JD(U)-RJD grand alliance, Mr Jaitley said both Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar, who had all along done politics in the name of Lohia, who had always opposed the Congress, now sat in that party’s offices to address joint press conferences. Launching BJP youth wing BJYM’s nationwide “Panch Kranti Abhiyan” on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 65th birthday, Mr Jaitley also said Congress president Sonia Gandhi was given the role of a “warm-up speaker” at a recent rally of the grand secular alliance, and that the party, which was busy stalling Parliament, will be further eased out in many states.
The finance minister also took on Nitish Kumar for daring the PM to debate the issue of development in Bihar, saying the state stood at 21st position in the ease of doing business in a World Bank report, far behind Gujarat which occupied the top slot.
“Nitishji says let us debate the development issue. What is there to debate? This debate is over. Gujarat is number one and Bihar stands at 21. The economy speaks through statistics and not through debate,” he said, rejecting the demand for such a debate.
Claiming that the chemistry in Bihar had changed ahead of the Assembly polls, Mr Jaitley said the BJP and its allies would win the Assembly polls. “We will win in Bihar. It will be a repeat of what happened during the Lok Sabha elections,” he added.
