AIMIM chief, Asaddudin Owaisi, is at the centre of a controversy yet again. This time over Amulya Leona, who made it to headlines for raising ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans at Owaisi’s anti-CAA rally in Bangalore.
While the incident has caused massive outrage, it is nothing new for Owaisi’s AIMIM which often makes headlines for all the wrong reasons.
#WATCH Ruckus erupts at the protest rally against CAA&NRC in Bengaluru where AIMIM Chief Asaddudin Owaisi is present. A woman named Amulya at the protest rally says "The difference between Pakistan zinadabad and Hindustan zindabad is…". pic.twitter.com/FPh5Ccu3HD
— ANI (@ANI) February 20, 2020
Whether it was Akbaruddin Owaisi’s ’15-minute’ threat to Hindus or Waris Pathan’s recent remarks about how just 15 crore Muslims can be a bigger force than the 100 crore majority population, the party has always been in the spotlight over Islamist, anti-India remarks.
But what many are missing is the inherent trappings of a PR stunt in the shameful incident of a 19-year old girl raising anti-India, pro-Pakistan slogans.
If we were to take a close look at the video of the incident that has gone viral, we can observe how a clear, high definition footage of the incident has been captured, especially the part where the AIMIM chief can be seen springing into action and trying to stop the teenage girl from raising such slogans.
Owaisi made full use of the opportunity to emerge as the one who staunchly opposed such incendiary slogans. He said, “I condemn this statement. The woman is not associated with us. Humare liye Bharat Zindabad tha, zindabad rahega. (For us, India was glorious, it will always remain glorious).
Asaduddin got further carried away and also said, “Neither me nor my party has any link with her. We denounce her. The organisers should not have invited her here [Bengaluru rally]. If I knew this, I would not have come here. We are for India and we no way support our enemy nation Pakistan. Our entire drive is to save India.”
The question which arises is that if the girl has got nothing to do with AIMIM, what was she doing at Owaisi’s rally in the first place. And more importantly, why was she sharing the stage with the AIMIM chief. Now to impute the entire blame on the organisers is highly unreasonable and illogical.
The 19-year old girl might have been seen as someone who is expendable and it is very much likely that the Owaisi led party went ahead, expending her.
The idea behind the entire exercise which seems so much like a publicity stunt seems to be to make Owaisi look a Nationalist Indian as opposed to his current image, while Amulya comes out looking like the real villain.
The incident continues to draw a lot of flak and outrage, but no one is trying to look at how it may have been a PR exercise. And in that sense, AIMIM might have benefitted from the entire exercise.
