Riyadh: Rejecting the allegations that the All India Majlis-e-Itehadul Muslimeen (MIM) was responsible for splitting the secular votes in the recently held Maharashtra elections, Asaduddin Owaisi reiterated that Muslims alone should not be expected of carrying the burden of secularism and said the anti-Muslim policies of the Congress-NCP combine led to their humiliating defeat.
[MIM Chief Asaduddin Owaisi with his uncle Ahmeduddin Owaisi (second from right) in Riyadh.
"Why should Muslims alone carry the burden of secularism on their shoulders in India? Why is it that members of the majority community have decided to refuse to take upon themselves the cause of protecting secularism and strengthening communal harmony?", Asaduddin Owaisi, MIM president and Hyderabad MP, asked while addressing an event organized by the Bazm-e-Ittehad at The Ritz Carlton in Riyadh.
"With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coming to power after the national elections in May, we see the rapid spread of communalism all over the country," Owaisi is quoted as saying by Arab News.
"The so-called secular parties never tried to protect secularism by providing equal justice to the minority community and have just treated them as a vote bank", he added.
Hitting back strongly at the political parties that have accused his party for splitting the secular vote, Owaisi said: "Out of a total of six million Muslims who cast their vote in the recent elections in Maharashtra, the AIMIM received only half-a-million votes. How can Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar blame us for having split the secular vote in favor of the BJP."
Describing the expatriate community as the brand ambassadors of the growing Indo-Saudi ties, Owaisi called upon them to continue their good work to bolster bilateral relations and thanked the Saudi authorities for their humanitarian support.
During the program, Madinah-based Bazm-e-Ittehad President Ahmeduddin Owaisi was honored with the prestigious "Salar-e-Millat Award" for carrying forward the legacy of India's dynamic Muslim leader, the late Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, who was popularly known as Salar-e-Millat.
Ahmeduddin Owaisi, who is based in Saudi Arabia, is brother of Asaduddin Owaisi's father Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi. Owaisi family is leading the Muslim community in Hyderabad and Telangana since more than seven decades now. While Asaduddin Owaisi represents Hyderabad as MP, his younger brother Akbaruddin Owaisi is MLA in Telangana assemby.
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