The police have denied permission to Asaduddin Owaisi, Member of Parliament and president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), to hold a rally in the city a week before polls to the Pune Municipal Corporation.
The police fear a possible law and order situation owing to Mr. Owaisi’s fiery speeches. Mr. Owaisi is scheduled to address a rally in the Muslim-dominated Bhavani Peth area on February 14. He is campaigning for Zubair Shaikh, an AIMIM aspirant from ward number 19.
The Bhavani Peth police, which issued the order, said Mr. Owaisi “had a reputation for making speeches that were inflammatory and socially divisive in content” and that venue chosen was highly ‘sensitive’. Incidentally, Mr. Owaisi’s brother, AIMIM leader Akbaruddin, was permitted to address an election rally last week at the city’s SSPMS grounds.
‘Ludicrous ban’
Dubbing the order “ludicrous”, AIMIM leader Anjum Inamdar said the party and its alliance partners would vociferously contest the ‘ban’. “This prohibition order by the Bhavani Peth Police and their remarks against Mr. Owaisi in particular are highly objectionable.” Mr. Inamdar said Mr. Owaisi had been addressing numerous rallies across poll-bound Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra for the last 25 days, which drew lakhs of people.
Mr. Inamdar said the Pune police’s directive was bewildering as Mr. Owaisi is scheduled to address similar public rallies in Solapur and Nagpur on the same day.
He said, “No police station in these cities [Nagpur and Solapur] has had any objection to Mr. Owaisi speaking publicly. This [proscription] is highly improper of the Bhavani Peth Police as candidates from other political parties have been campaigning for aspirants in this area without restraint.”
In a bid to queer the pitch for the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Nationalist Congress Party, the AIMIM has allied with three smaller ‘backward community’ and Ambedkarite political entities like the People’s Republic Party, the Bahujan Republican Socialist Party and the Republican Yuva Morcha to form a ‘Third Front’.
The front members said they would contest the police ban on Mr. Owaisi’s address, while AIMIM leaders remarked that the rally would go ahead as scheduled.
Important player
The AIMIM first made a mark with an impressive showing in the 2014 Maharashtra Assembly election, where it bagged two seats and polled over half-a-million votes. However, it came into its own in the State when it snared 25 seats in the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation in 2015, emerging as the major Opposition and trumping the Congress and the NCP.
