Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh): Renowned Urdu poet Munawwar Rana on Wednesday slammed All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) supremo Asaduddin Owaisi for his political involvement in the sensitive state of Uttar Pradesh and even expressed doubts that the attack on the latter's cavalcade must have been of his own doing.
Speaking to ETV Bharat at his Lucknow residence, Rana whose daughter Uroosa Rana is also contesting the assembly election on the Indian National Congress ticket, said the fourth phase of the election is very crucial for the BJP. "If the BJP does not perform well in the fourth round of voting, it will be out of the race," he said.
He also lamented that the political leaders used objectionable language during the campaigning and cited a viral video of well-known Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad adding that Jawad belongs to a respectable and noble family who should have desisted from using distasteful language during the campaigning. "My daughter Uroosa is also in the fray but we did not participate in the election campaign and did not consider it appropriate to make any statement in this regard," he said.
When asked about the party he will vote for, Rana said that he has no favourite party in the elections. " We will definitely go to the polls and vote in favour of the party that is eradicating hatred," he added.
READ: Poet Munawwar Rana to leave UP if Yogi govt returns to power
Reacting to the shooting of the cavalcade of AIMIM leader and MP Asaduddin Owaisi, he said that the attack has revealed two important things. "One, the claims of CM Yogi Adityanath on Law and Order are hollow and why any harsh action was not initiated against the shooter for attacking a national level leader," he said.
He said that Owaisi himself may have been involved in the shooting as the bullet hit the tyre of his vehicle indicating the shooter was amateurish. Regretting that Muslims in UP have no strong leader due to which the crucial Muslim vote gets divided adding that that was the reason Muslim votes had no significance in 2017.
Criticizing Owaisi for his entry into UP politics he said that the politics in UP was different from his home turf Hyderabad where Owaisi rules the "kingdom of seven constituencies".
Further reacting to the hijab issue, Rana slammed CM Adityanath for inviting controversies. "Yogi is a man with a sick mentality. He is not fit for politics," he said.
He said that the manner in which political parties collect donations, the Karnataka government has donated the issue of hijab to the BJP, which is why the issue of hijab is frequently mentioned in UP. He also said the Karnataka chief minister tried to "gift" the hijab controversy to his UP counterpart during the election campaign.
