Kolkata: Marking his entry into the election fray in West Bengal on a two-day visit, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has pledged his party’s support to Pirzada Abbas Siddiqui, influential Muslim cleric and rival of Trinamul Congress supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, to create a new political alliance to tap the Muslim votebank which is nearly one-third of the state’s population.
Owaisi dared the Chief Minister to explain the exodus of her party leaders to the BJP and the saffron party’s rise in the state in absence of his party. He was responding to the charge that the entry of his party divides the Opposition vote and benefits the BJP.
Landing at the Kolkata Airport on Sunday morning he quietly headed to Furfura Sharif in Hooghly which commands huge influence among the Muslims in South Bengal. The AIMIM chief met Siddiqui, the religious shrine’s secretary who aspires to float a political outfit for Muslims, hunting for an ally to contest the Bengal polls in…