Poet Munawwar Rana slams Owaisi for dividing Muslims

Well-known Urdu poet Munawwar Rana has said that leaders like AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi have divided and destroyed Muslims.

Equating Owaisi with Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah, he said that the community will not allow another Jinnah to flourish in India.

Munawwar Rana, 67, was reacting to the AIMIM winning five seats in Bihar election and supposedly cutting into the opposition Grand Alliance's votes on many seats.

"The AIMIM leader always divides Muslim votes which eventually benefits the Bharatiya Janata Party," he said.

The poet said, "Owaisi is an agent of the BJP and always has been acting as vote divider. Both Asaduddin and his younger brother Akbaruddin Owaisi, who for me is a goon, misguide Muslims, especially youth, and further create division among the Muslim voters in order to give direct benefit to the BJP because Owaisi has vested interest to save his Rs 15,000 crore worth properties, which include medical colleges, land and other businesses."

"For Seemanchal in Bihar, a Muslim-dominated region, Owaisi should have joined hands with Tejashwi Yadav-led Mahagathbandhan to throw out the NDA, but instead he took BJP's help to safeguard his interests. Those votes and seats could have changed the entire fate of Bihar politics," he explained.

He further said, "What welfare or justice would Owaisi do to Muslims by winning five seats in Bihar? For Asaduddin, UP-Bihar is a milk cow for his vested interest. The 'Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb' of the region is still a distant thought for him."

Rana said that he knew Asaduddin since the time when the AIMIM chief was a teenager.

Munawwar Rana said that after Bihar, Owaisi was now heading for West Bengal to divide the Bengali Muslim votes, while Amit Shah will divide Bengali Hindu votes.

"Before I die, I want to help Muslims, especially youth, to identify the real culprits who are destroying and dividing them. The beauty of this nation is in diversity and it should not be compromised," he added.

Munawwar Rana, earlier this month, was booked by the Lucknow Police for his controversial remarks on the recent killings in France over the caricatures of the Prophet. Rana had said that drawing cartoons of Prophet Mohammad and killings over it, both were wrong but he "would also have done the same" as insulting a religious figure is unacceptable.