Hyderabad MP and President of All India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday said that unity between Muslims and Dalits is the need of the hour. Hyderabad MP and President of All India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday said that unity between Muslims and Dalits is the need of the hour.

Calling Dalits and Muslims to “unite and seize power”, AIMIM president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi Thursday called for a “much-needed unity” between the two communities as he formally began his journey for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections next year by holding his first public rally in the state.

“The work to finish Samajwadi Party politically has now formally begun,” Owaisi said at a rally here.

“Unity between Dalits and Muslims is the need of the hour. I have not come here to become a leader but make you a leader. The SP did not give permission to me (to address a rally in the state) for the last three years. They have lost sleep…they are afraid of me. But now I am here – I’ll stay in your house and not be bothered about their permission,” Owaisi said.

“If (Ram Manohar) Lohia was alive today he would have held my hand and brought me to UP and asked me to speak. But the SP thinks I give inflammatory speeches,” he said, claiming that he has been able to come now only since the Election Commission is overseeing arrangements ahead of the February 13 bypolls.

Emphasising that the country will forever remain indebted to B R Ambedkar for drafting the Constitution, he said India otherwise would have gone the “Hindutva” way. “True tribute will be paid (to Ambedkar) when Muslims vote for Dalit candidate Pradeep Kori (AIMIM’s Bikapur candidate),” he said.

“We cannot forget Ambedkar’s sacrifice, and it’s sad that incidents of atrocities against Dalits have increased. When (Hyderabad Central University) research scholar Rohith Vemula committed suicide due to the atrocities, I rushed there and met his mother. Today, his death is asking all of us the same question – why was he forced to commit suicide?” Owaisi said, and took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his late acknowledgement, saying Modi “acted” at a function in Lucknow where he remembered Rohith Vemula by stopping for a minute.

Referring to the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, he said, “Even Mohammad Akhlaq’s soul is asking you to question the perpetrators of crime. I met Akhlaq’s mother, she said no other son should die (like that). But strangely, (Chief Minister) Akhilesh Yadav could not find time to reach Dadri due to fears that he may lose his chair by visiting Noida,” he said.

Significantly, while Owaisi took on both the Samajwadi Party government in UP as well as the BJP for fomenting communal tension in the state, he did not refer to the BSP or its chief Mayawati even once in his 35-minute speech at the Eidgah ground in Bhadarsa, a town nearly 25 km from Faizabad, which had witnessed communal riots in 2010.

Egged on by the crowd roaring “dekho dekho kaun aaya, sher aaya, sher aaya (look who has come, it’s the lion)”, the AIMIM leader slammed the SP government in the state and the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre for the woeful condition of Dalits and Muslims.

Targeting the Akhilesh government, he said for the first time since Independence, 50,000 people had to flee after the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013. “They (the state government) have failed to protect you, failed to fulfill your promises, failed to deliver,” he said. “They are running a drama company, with Mulayam changing his statements every day. And now Ram Gopal (Yadav, Mulayam’s brother) claims that incidents such as Rohith Vemula’s suicide occur in all universities.”

Vemula, a Dalit and a reasearch scholar at Hyderabad Central University, committed suicide last month after he and four other students from the Scheduled Caste communities were suspended over allegedly assaulting a worker of ABVP, the students’ wing of the RSS.

Referring to the RSS’s “plans to scrap reservation for Scheduled Castes,” he said, “They should remember that reservation will continue till the world exists.”

Rebuking BJP over remarks targeting the Muslim community to “go to Pakistan”, Owaisi said, “We were told to go to Pakistan during the Bihar polls. (BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas) Naqvi asked me to go to Pakistan if we want to eat meat. Now tell me who has gone to Pakistan,” he said referring to Modi’s visit to the neighbouring country.

“Failing to provide relief to the people, the BJP has adopted another tactic. The PM visited Pakistan and the Pathankot terror incident occurred. The timing is strange,” he said.

“Ever since, youths are being rounded up on charges of having links with the IS.” Stating that there should be a policy to counsel these youths, Owaisi said, “We all condemn the IS, and India should remember that this demon called the IS emerged due to the wrong policies of the US in Iraq, Libya and Syria. Now India should not send its forces to fight there.”

He also asked people to “identify the SP and BJP’s hidden game”. “Both are not doing anything for minorities and Dalits. Budget of Minority Welfare in UP is lying unused. Crores are spent on Mulayam’s birthday. Not a single Dalit candidate is there in the list of 31 MLC candidates of SP. And the ruling party did not give reservation to Muslims which it had promised. Let Dalits and Muslims unite and seize power,” the MP said.

Talking on the same lines, AIMIM candidate Pradeep Kori said, “When Dalit and Muslims came together, the result was Taj Mahal and Red Fort, which were built by Muslim rulers and Dalit labourers. The unity will lead to good results this time, too.”

📣 The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines

For all the latest India News, download Indian Express App.