PATNA: The firebrand Muslim leader and the chief of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) Asaduddin Owaisi on Tuesday scotched any speculation about entering into alliance with any political party and said his party would go it alone in the assembly elections in Bihar. The five-phase elections begin next months. “We will fight elections on our own strength and won’t enter into pre-poll truck with any party,” Owaisi who was here in connection with party’s poll preparations told the media on Tuesday. He denied the opposition’s charge that he was trying to indirectly help the Bhartiya Janata party (BJP) by fielding candidates on the Muslim-dominated seats which meant cutting into the secular votes, and asked why such questions were not being asked from the Samajwadi Party (SP) or Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which too are contesting elections on their own. The SP and BSP which are headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Miss Mayawati respectively have announced to contest elections on all 243 seats in Bihar. “Why such questions are being asked only from me? Why you don’t ask them from Mulayam Singh Yadav or [Miss] Mayawati?” he shot back. He said his party would very soon decide how many seats it would be contesting in Bihar which has a total number of 243 assembly seats. Meanwhile, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) — a party headed by Lalu Prasad now an ally of the Grand Secular Alliance — appears split over taking support from Owaisi. While one section of the party led by party vice-president Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said the grand secular alliance would benefit if AIMIM joined them, the RJD chief Prasad rejected such idea saying a radical person like Owaisi had no place in the RJD. “No fanatic from any party has any place in our progressive grand alliance which is committed to justice, secularism and development,” the RJD president clarified on his Twitter page today. The RJD chief gave this clarification moments after his senior party colleague appeared inclined towards roping in the AIMIM leader for better political gains. “Owaisi is a secular leader and his joining the grand alliance will electorally benefit them,” was how said RJD vice-president Singh adding they would try to rope in Owaisi. Owaisi has announced to field his candidates on some 24 Muslim-dominated seats in the border region of eastern Bihar.
