Am most infamous politician as I give voice to community suppressed for 70 yrs: Asaduddin Owaisi

Addressing party workers in Lucknow as part of preparations for the assembly elections due early next year, Owaisi cited the census figures to highlight the backwardness of Muslims in the state.

He said the country’s literacy rate was 74 per cent, but that of Muslims was 68 per cent, and accused the previous governments of “stopping the Muslim children from getting education”. Owaisi said Muslim localities don’t have schools and roads, but only police stations.

“When our representative reaches the UP Assembly, he will fight to get schools, colleges and universities for you,” he said.

Owaisi, also the Hyderabad MP, said many Muslims were elected during the last Assembly elections in UP, but they failed to give voice to the concerns of the community. “Many Muslim leaders called me during the Muzaffarnagar riots and asked me to speak up. They said they were under pressure not to speak,” he said, adding that there are “20,000 Muslim youths rotting in UP’s jails” without any legal aid, and the AIMIM MLAs will work to get them out of jails.

The AIMIM chief said 76 out of 1,000 Muslim children die at birth and 105 of 1,000 die by the age of five years. He said Rs 1,020 crore were given for development works in Muslim-majority areas in state by the UPA government, but the then Mayawti BSP government did not spend even Rs 500 crore.

He said Muslims comprise 19 per cent of UP’s population, but count for only 5 per cent in terms of government jobs. “In every police station of UP, Chief Minister’s relatives and friends are posted,” he said, adding that there is “only Yadavwad in UP, not Samajwad (socialism)”.

He said the “secular parties” were calling him an ally of BJP, while the latter called him “a supporter of terrorism”. The first incident of terrorism in the country was killing of Mahatma Gandhi, in which Nathuram Godse and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar were involved, and the BJP celebrates latter’s birth anniversary, Owaisi said, adding that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had noted that Syama Prasad Mookerjee was “working to help those accused of killing Gandhi”.

He said the BJP was taking out Tiranga Yatra, but it must know that the Tricolour was made by a Muslim aide of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, while Savarkar had said that the Tricolour could never be recognised as India’s national flag. Targeting the BJP and the RSS for recent attacks on Dalits in Gujarat over cow protection, he said the leaders of the two organisations should stop wearing leather shoes and belts. He said “these people, most of whom have diabetes” should also avoid taking insulin because it is made using “cattle pancreas”.

He said when Mohammad Akhlaq was lynched on suspicions of consuming and storing beef, many thought that would be the end of the “persecution”. “But then Muslims were made to eat cow dung and drink urine in Haryana. Our women were beaten up in MP for carrying meat,” he said.

Citing the communal riots in Muzaffarnagar, killing of policemen in Mathura, lynching of Akhlaq in Dadri and recent gangrape of a woman and her minor daughter in Bulandshahr, he said there was “no law in UP”.

Owaisi cited a ruling party leader as saying that Bulandshahr incident could be a “conspiracy”. “The minor girl and her mother could be our sister, daughter as well. How can this be a conspiracy?” he asked in comments that were aimed at UP Cabinet minister Azam Khan.

He said the Akhilesh Yadav government had earlier given the money to help Akhlaq’s family, but later registered a case against “Akhlaq who was murdered, his son who was assaulted and his daughter who was treated in a way that I cannot state”.

He said Akhilesh and his family keep busy watching the dance of Bollywood stars in Saifai, while the state suffered and people were eating grass in Bundelkhand.

He said if he could speak in Parliament and question Home Minister Rajnath Singh on flogging of Dalits in Gujarat, then why was he not allowed to hold a rally in UP. “This is because there is an unbreakable relationship between SP and BJP,” Owaisi said, adding he will campaign across state.