UP polls: Alliance between SP and Congress a bid to cover up weaknesses, says Asaduddin Owaisi

AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi on Moday termed a “bunch of contradictions” the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance for Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, and said the two parties got together in a bid to cover up their weaknesses.

In the alliance 20 candidates belong to Samajwadi Party out of the 105 who would contest on Congress symbol, Owaisi claimed.

The SP would contest 298 seats and the Congress 105, as per the seat-sharing formula clinched between the two parties yesterday for the UP polls.

“Basically, it’s bunch of contradictions,” Owaisi, whose All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is also in the fray for the crucial assembly polls, told PTI in an interview.

If the objective of the alliance was to consolidate the Muslim vote, why could not a single Muslim win in the 2014 Lok Sabha election (in Uttar Pradesh), he asked.

“What happened to your (SP and Congress) vote? So, the Congress and the SP are both trying to cover up their own weaknesses,” he said, adding, “(chief minister) Akhilesh Yadav is trying to cover up his mis-governance and he has failed to fulfil his promises.”

“So the people of UP would remember the 2012 election manifesto (of SP) and the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots and unfulfilled promises. Where is the promise of reservation to Muslims? Akhilesh did not form a single committee to take this forward. These are relevant questions people will ask,” the Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad said.

Referring to SP’s promise of giving pressure cooker to the poor women in the election manifesto released yesterday, Owaisi said, “He (Akhilesh) himself is in a pressure-cooker situation.”

“Instead of distributing pressure cooker, SP itself is in a pressure cooker situation,” he said, referring to the people questioning the achievements of the Akhilesh government.

He alleged that during the Gujarat riots of 2002, the then Narendra Modi government in the state “failed to protect life (of people) which is a constitutional duty of a government, and people will not forget the Gujarat riots.”

“So, how can one forget Muzaffarnagar riots which happened under the Akhilesh government? So, this is the problem of all these so-called secular parties (Congress) that they want us to forget Muzaffarnagar because they have allied with the Samajwadi Party.

“So, people of Uttar Pradesh will never forget Muzaffarnagar,” the AIMIM leader said.