JEDDAH: Bihar Finance Minister Abdul Bari Siddiqui, who performed Umrah on Monday, is known for playing a key role in the victory of secular forces in the Bihar Assembly elections in October-November last year.
The secular combination that included Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) and Sonia Gandhi’s Congress Party comprehensively defeated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Siddiqui is a veteran politician and currently the leading Muslim leader in the state. He has won assembly elections on seven occasions. A very close aide of Bihar strongman Lalu Prasad Yadav, he was widely expected to become the deputy chief minister. But Yadav instead preferred his sons for the No. 2 and No. 3 positions in the new cabinet.
He is being hosted in Jeddah by his friend and popular Indian community representative Asif Rameez Daudi. Siddiqui performed Umrah on Monday and praised the Saudi leadership for the extensive work done to expand the Grand Mosque in Makkah.
On Tuesday, he is expected to address an interactive session being organized by the Saudi-Indian Business Network (SIBN) on investment opportunities in Bihar. A series of events have been lined up in his honor in Riyadh.
He expects the BJP to do poorly in the just concluded assembly elections in West Bengal, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. “It is only in Assam that the BJP may slightly improve its position,” he said. “The results will further demolish the party’s political capital and it will then play its dirty communal politics to the hilt.”
However, all exit polls on Assam, released on Monday, indicate that the BJP will either be the single-largest party or sweep the election in Assam.
Siddiqui advised secular Indians, and especially Muslims, to exercise caution in the face of provocation. “The BJP actively solicits polarization and we should not provide them with that,” he said.
The secular combination that included Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) and Sonia Gandhi’s Congress Party comprehensively defeated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Siddiqui is a veteran politician and currently the leading Muslim leader in the state. He has won assembly elections on seven occasions. A very close aide of Bihar strongman Lalu Prasad Yadav, he was widely expected to become the deputy chief minister. But Yadav instead preferred his sons for the No. 2 and No. 3 positions in the new cabinet.
He is being hosted in Jeddah by his friend and popular Indian community representative Asif Rameez Daudi. Siddiqui performed Umrah on Monday and praised the Saudi leadership for the extensive work done to expand the Grand Mosque in Makkah.
On Tuesday, he is expected to address an interactive session being organized by the Saudi-Indian Business Network (SIBN) on investment opportunities in Bihar. A series of events have been lined up in his honor in Riyadh.
He expects the BJP to do poorly in the just concluded assembly elections in West Bengal, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. “It is only in Assam that the BJP may slightly improve its position,” he said. “The results will further demolish the party’s political capital and it will then play its dirty communal politics to the hilt.”
However, all exit polls on Assam, released on Monday, indicate that the BJP will either be the single-largest party or sweep the election in Assam.
Siddiqui advised secular Indians, and especially Muslims, to exercise caution in the face of provocation. “The BJP actively solicits polarization and we should not provide them with that,” he said.
