Owaisi: BJP's lovable 'enemy' in Bihar elections

PATNA: Rajesh Khanna starrer 'Dushman' movie's title song 'dushman dushman jo doston se pyara hai' was a big hit in the seventies. Four decades later, Owaisi, the vitriolic Parliamentarian from distant Telangana has given real meaning to the apparently contradictory title song. Having conducted Seemanchal's political recce, Asaduuddin Owaisi has emerged as BJP's most lovable enemy, says activist Md.Moosa.
Explaining BJP's benefit in case Owaisi carried out his plan to contest Bihar assembly elections, Moosa said that besides causing confusion and some division in Muslim votes, Owaisi would help polarisation of the Hindu vote and this polarisation would help BJP across the state. Owaisi's Bihar points man Akhtarul Imaan has already made the experiment in the last Parliamentary election and the Kishanganj experiment was now being made on a much larger scale, said Moosa.
According to the activist who has been instrumental in managing the election campaign of several Seemanchal leaders including former Minister late Md. Hussain Azad, by withdrawing from the Parliamentary contest from Kishanganj in 2014, Akhtarul Imaan, the JD-U official candidate, ignited a chain reaction that helped the BJP.
Imaan, first deserted the RJD and subsequently ditched the JD-U by withdrawing from the contest at the last moment in favour of the Congress candidate Maulana Israrul Haque and in the process helped extreme polarisation in BJP's favour.
Accusing Imaan of political dishonesty bordering debautchery, Moosa said that by roping in Owaisi to contest Bihar election, Akhtarul Imaan was doing what a dozen Shah Nawaz Hussains can not do. It was time, the Muslims saw throw BJP's game, said the activist.
Owaisi has already helped communal parties win more than two dozen additional seats in Maharashtra but for him BJP would not have won the civic election in Bangalore. Now that the BJP credibility as the delivery van of Indian politics is on the wane, the party more than ever needs the likes of Owaisi, says professor Ain Tabish. Tabish, who teaches English literature to post graduate students. Professor Tabish says that like Shakesparean dramas, Indian Muslim politics too was full of friendly enemies.
Opposing Owaisi's entry into Bihar politics, well known Muslim intellectual of the state and chairman Urdu advisory committee, Shafi Mashhadi said that the country needed secular polity. And that the likes of Owaisi or any other practitioner of communal brand of politics were not welcome. Mashhadi made it clear that he was opposed to Owaisi on account of the principle of secularism. Minority communalism can only fan majority communalism. There are no good communalists and bad communalists, he said.
Sharim Ali, HAMS Muslim face in the Magadh region said that Owaisi has every right to conduct political activity anywhere in the country and the constitution has conferred this right on him. Nobody can take away such a right from anybody. One may or may not agree with a particular brand of politics.
But there was no room for apartheid in politics, said Ali. Owaisi has as much right to contest elections in Bihar as anyone else. Let the people accept or reject him. The voters, contrary to the perception of self appointed guardians of political morality were not fools. You can not ban the entry of any player in the political field, said Ali. Election season secularism can do no good either to the state or the community, Ali concluded.
Anisur Rahman Quasmi former chairman of the state Haj Committee said that Owaisi has not formally made any announcement and as such he would not comment on the basis of speculation. Email query send to Owaisi on his Bihar plan remained unanswered.