Updated April 10th, 2021 at 17:16 IST

Owaisi slams Prashant Kishor over Mamata's appeasement politics amid Clubhouse chat row

Asaduddin Owaisi accused Poll Strategist Prashant Kishor of using Muslim community as a scapegoat after the latter's clubhouse tapes were out in public domain

Reported by: Pritesh Kamath
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AIMIM chief and Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad, Asaduddin Owaisi has accused poll strategist Prashant Kishor of using the Muslim community as a scapegoat for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's failures in the election. This accusation of Owaisi comes after the stunning audio conversations released by the BJP that includes journalists discussing Bengal elections with poll strategist Prashant Kishor on an invite-only chat app called Club House.

In a series of tweets, Owaisi has stated the plight of the Muslims in West Bengal by contending that Muslims are 27 per cent of the state but have only 6 per cent of government jobs. Among students opting for higher education, only 11 per cent are Muslims, according to Owaisi and 80 per cent of rural Muslims earn less than Rs 5,000 without clarifying if it's per month or per annum.

He also tweeted that six worst performing districts on healthcare have a Muslim population of more than 25 per cent but their share in the prisons' population is 37 per cent. 

"People in Malda, Murshidabad, etc have to drink arsenic-contaminated water. These are fruits of "blatant appeasement". The Left's mistreatment of Muslims is recorded by Kundu & Sachar Committee. Their most famous land reforms didn't reach Muslims. 3/4th of them are landless," Owaisi said in one of the tweets while adding that loyal voters of TMC and the Left have got nothing in return from the political parties who ruled West Bengal for decades. He also asked Mamata Banerjee why is she begging that Muslim votes shouldn't be divided if there was such appeasement in the past.

The Club House audio tapes revelation

The leaked Clubhouse chat with Prashant Kishor features Ravish Kumar, Swati Chaturvedi, Arfa Khanum, Mitali Mukherjee, Rohini Singh, Sanjay Hegde and several other journalists on Clubhouse. On the Clubhouse tape, the poll-strategist is heard admitting that parties, including the TMC, used the Muslim community to gain votes. Prashant Kishor goes on to acknowledge the tremendous support and popularity that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has.

Prashant Kishor has admitted in the conversation that Muslims have been used by several parties electorally including the TMC. He says, “There has been blatant effort to appease the minorities. Look at West Bengal, politics here, whoever casts vote for Muslims will form the government.”

On being asked by one of the journalists about the Matua community's tilt in this Bengal elections, Prashant Kishor revealed that he feels the BJP enjoyed the support of 75 per cent of the Matua community. In fact, Prashant Kishor went on to say, “there are a lot of BJP workers on ground.  All those workers could have been imported from the left, but are dedicatedly working for BJP. There is no area or district in West Bengal, where there is no huge support for BJP. ”

After the conversations were out in the public domain, Prashant Kishor has retaliated by challenging the BJP to share the entire conversation and not just excerpts of it. He also reiterated his earlier prediction that BJP will not cross 100 seats in the state.

 

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Published April 10th, 2021 at 17:16 IST