Reject national parties, Owaisi tells Dalits, Muslims, Adivasis

​Thane: All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi asked Dalits, Muslims and Adivasis to come together and reject national parties in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Speaking at a rally of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi in Kalyan near Mumbai, Owaisi said it was time for the "deprived" to hit back rather than continue "suffering" as was the case in the past 70 years.

The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi is an outfit floated by the AIMIM and the Prakash Ambedkar-led Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM). He said Babasaheb Ambedkar had laid down equal rights for all citizens of the country. He took a dig at the Congress and the ruling BJP and claimed the two parties had got elected on the votes of the "deprived" classes but had only meted out injustice to them. The AIMIM president said the country needed a pehredar (guard) rather than a chowkidar (watchman), a term Prime Minister Narendra Modi often uses to describe himself and his role.

Congress chief Rahul Gandhi also came in for criticism from Owaisi who called him a janeudhari (wearer of the sacred thread).  The Hyderabad MP said only parties like the one led by Prakash Ambedkar could do justice to the poor and downtrodden and not the Congress or leaders like Modi, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis and NCP chief Sharad Pawar. A few days after President Ram Nath Kovind announced Bharat Ratna to Mukherjee, RSS leader and social activist late Nanaji Deshmukh and late music maestro Bhupen Hazarika, the AIMIM chief claimed the country's highest civilian honour had only been bestowed on people from the "upper castes".