AIMIM MLA Imtiaz Jaleel.
(Express Photo by Ganesh Shirsekar)
A day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said the AIMIM’s offer to join the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) was part of a BJP conspiracy, party MP Imtiaz Jaleel said he would meet the chief minister and emphasise the “need for an alliance to keep BJP away from power” in the state.
Jaleel also rebutted Thackeray’s claim about “those who bow their heads before the tomb of Aurangzeb” while underlining that Muslims were not the Mughal king’s followers. “Though the chief minister is calling our offer a BJP conspiracy, there is no truth in it. It is a serious offer and the objective behind it is to keep the saffron party away from power,” the Aurangabad MP told The Indian Express.
To convince the Shiv Sena chief about “the need for such an alliance”, Jaleel said he would seek an appointment with him. “He is our chief minister, and I am sure he will give me an appointment,” Jaleel said.
Jaleel said it was possible that the chief minister would not be convinced about the “need for an alliance” in the first meeting. “We are ready to hold repeated dialogues on this count. I am sure after several rounds of talks, something positive will come out on the alliance front with the MVA,” he said.
On Sunday, while addressing a virtual meeting of party MPs and functionaries, Thackeray said, “Look at the conspiracy. The AIMIM has given an offer to join the Maha Vikas Aghadi for no reason. Is there any connection? This is the real plot. The AIMIM would make the offer and then the BJP would launch criticism on it.”
“Even if we die, we will not go with those who bow their heads at the tomb of Aurangzeb,” he added.
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Responding to the allegation against his party, Jaleel said he never bowed his head before Aurangzeb’s tomb. “It is written in our religious texts that whenever we visit the ‘mazar’ of a deceased person, we pay our respects. Whoever that person might be–he might even be our enemy–we pay our respects but do not bow our heads.”
Jaleel said it was being repeatedly insinuated, as the chief minister did, that Muslims were Aurangzeb’s followers. “Let me put it plainly, Muslims are not followers of Aurangzeb. He is not our icon. We do not celebrate his jayanti or birth anniversaries. Scores of Muslims admire and believe in the principles of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj…And this has happened for centuries.”
“Whether anyone likes it or not, Aurangzeb is a part of history. Neither are we following him, nor we glorify his regime. Unnecessarily, Muslims are being associated with him,” the AIMIM leader said.
Jaleel said Aurangzeb’s tomb in Aurangabad is a small and insignificant one. “Too much is being made of his tomb. It is a small, nondescript one. Even Aurangzeb wanted it that way…Too much should not be made of his tomb.”
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
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