JEDDAH, 3 June 2008 — Muslims are taken care of by the Bahujan Samaj Party government in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, says a senior BSP leader and member of the assembly from Bara Banki’s Masauli constituency.
Fareed Mahfooz Qidwai, who is in the Kingdom to perform Umrah, hoped Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati would become prime minister of India in the next parliamentary elections. He said it was not his wishful thinking and cited instances of other Indian states that had learned much from Mayawati’s style of ruling Uttar Pradesh.
When Arab News sought his comments on Mayawati’s complaint that the central government was trying to defame her government in the Aarushi murder case, Qidwai said since he had been in the Kingdom for some time and did not have the full facts about the case, it would not be proper for him to comment. However, the central government never misses a chance to defame the BSP government in Uttar Pradesh, he added. He hoped that senior Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal’s joining BSP would help Mayawati in next year’s parliamentary elections.
Qidwai also praised the BSP government for providing security for the historical mosques and tombs in Ayodhya that escaped demolition during the destruction of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 by Hindu fanatics.
He expressed confidence in the judicial system of India and added that the verdict in the case of Babri Masjid in the high court will be in favor of Muslims because Babri Masjid was their place of worship and one of the most famous monuments of Islamic heritage in Ayodhya. He said the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was in the forefront of the demolition drive, was unlikely to profit from it in future elections as the issue had lost its emotive appeal.
