"He is going to the place where we prayed for 400 years": AIMIM chief targets SP chief at the new alliance's first rally in Meerut

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday took aim at Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav over his planned visit to the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, saying Muslims had prayed for centuries at the Babri Masjid, which stood on that site until it was demolished in 1992. "Akhilesh is going to the place where we prayed for 400 years," Owaisi said at a public meeting in Meerut.

On December 12, Akhilesh Yadav is to visit the Ram Mandir, built after the Supreme Court in 2019 awarded the land to the Hindu side - his first visit since the temple's consecration in January 2024. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has said Yadav is welcome but should first apologise to devotees of Lord Ram, referring to the 1990 firing on a Hindu group trying to reach the site, when Akhilesh's father Mulayam Singh Yadav was chief minister. Owaisi, in his speech, also mentioned Azad Samaj Party leader Chandrashekhar Azad's support for people seeking to offer namaz in Nagina.

The Meerut meeting was the first rally of the Samajik Parivartan Morcha, the new alliance of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and the Azad Samaj Party (ASP), which sees itself as an alternative to the ruling BJP-led NDA and to the main opposition SP and Congress. The Muslim-Dalit combination seeks to carve out a new political space in a state that goes to the polls in less than half a year, even as the SP and the Congress seek to consolidate those same votes.

Attacks on the SP and the Congress

Owaisi asked whether Yadav had visited places where mosques and madrasas had been demolished. He also turned the SP's PDA slogan - standing for pichhde (backward classes), Dalit and alpsankhyak (minorities) - into a jibe: "Akhilesh Yadav talks about PDA... This is what PDA actually means - 'Palat Diya Akhilesh'," he said, meaning 'Akhilesh shall be toppled'.

He raised the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots to attack the SP. "When he was chief minister, the Muzaffarnagar massacre happened in 2013. 50,000 people were driven out of their homes," Owaisi said, speaking in the heart of western Uttar Pradesh. He said the SP had done nothing despite having 47 Muslim MLAs, while Yadav was watching song-and-dance in Saifai, and alleged that the SP government later demolished the relief camps.

Owaisi also reminded the Congress of the 1987 killings in Meerut. "On May 22, 1987, in this very Meerut, 42 Muslims were massacred in Hashimpura. The government was Congress's. Ask your grandfathers," he told the audience.

Akhilesh Yadav has said Dalits and Muslims should vote for whichever party can defeat the BJP. Owaisi rejected this and asked whether the SP had beaten the BJP in 2014, 2017, 2019 or 2022. Without naming Adityanath or Yadav, he said an alliance of "those with moustaches and beards" would hurt "the clean-head and the clean-shaven".

Owaisi said his side would no longer bow its head before any political party, nor go begging to anyone, nor lay down carpets for anyone anymore. On the same stage, he backed Azad, the Nagina MP, as the alliance's chief ministerial candidate for the Uttar Pradesh elections.

"People ask me, 'Asaduddin Owaisi, why did you shake hands with Chandrashekhar Azad?' To them I respond: I have not merely shaken hands; our hearts have united," he said.

Citing a report, he claimed that about 75 percent of nearly 670 hate speeches documented across the country took place in Uttar Pradesh. He also alleged that police encounters had hit Muslims disproportionately. At the same time, he named the killings of gang leaders Vikas Dubey, Sumit Gurjar and Pushpendra Yadav, who were Hindus, to show that his party opposed every encounter killing. There will be no rule by gun, but rule by law, he said, adding that the khaki uniform will be held accountable.

He promised a farm loan waiver if the alliance won and sought higher sugarcane prices. He also demanded a high court bench in western Uttar Pradesh.

Owaisi recalled that the 1857 uprising against British rule began in Meerut and was fought during Ramzan, and suggested that polling next year could also fall in the holy month. Owaisi and Azad announced the morcha in Lucknow and said it would contest all 403 seats in the state. The AIMIM contested 95 seats in 2022 and did not win any; the ASP contested about 20 and also drew a blank.