Mamata backs Aamir Khan over intolerance remark

Thu 26 Nov 2015, 19:54:27

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee attended a massive rally of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind (JUH) in Kolkata on Thursday, where she extended support to Bollywood actor Aamir Khan who is at the centre of a controversy over his remarks on ‘growing intolerance’ in the country.Addressing the rally, Mamata asked, “What right do his attackers have to decide if Aamir is wrong or right?” The controversy arose after Khan said at the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism award in New Delhi on Monday that there is a growing sense of intolerance and despondency in the country.Referring to the controversy over consumption of beef, she said, “Why should someone be killed for eating beef? I have had chicken. How will you deal with me? They had sent me a letter requesting a ban on cow slaughter during the pujas. Why? Would you stop having potatoes or fish (during another festival)?”Banerjee today joined the long list of political heavyweights Siddiqullah Chowdhury, general secretary of the West Bengal unit of JUH, has invited to address his flock over the years.She was the chief guest at the massive minorities’ rally in central Kolkata where she bashed the Narendra Modi-led Central government and dwelt at length on intolerance to multiple rounds of applause.The JUH leadership predictably refrained from criticising the Trinamool Congress government, setting the stage for Banerjee to lambast the BJP and CPI(M) for ‘denying Muslims their due.’On JUH invitation to Mamata to attend the rally, Siddiqullah said that she was at the helm of the state and Muslims had no option but to turn to her for a solution to their problems. Mamata too said that she was asked by the media why she would attend the JUH rally and she shot back that nobody questioned her when she visited Ram KrishnaMission or Bharat Sevashram Sangha.With assembly elections due early next year, not surprisingly, both Chowdhury and Banerjee skirted topics on which they differed until recently. Chowdhury, who had declared that her government would face the same fate as the Left Front if she didn’t check police excesses against Muslims, today said that she was trying to introduce reservation for Muslims in educational institutions and ensure that they were not denied government jobs.Mamata returned the favour by saying that it was perfectly acceptable if Chowdhury criticised her for not honouring all her promises.For Mamata, it is important to ensure that she gets as much of the 30 per cent Muslim votes in the forthcoming polls and she is leaving no stone unturned towards that end. Over one lakh Muslims who gathered at today’s rally have been so pleased with the achievements of the present government which ‘Didi’ paraded before them that they didn’t seem to mind the CM’s usual misnomer of ending her speech with ‘Khuda Hafiz, Insha Allah’, although they well know the juxtaposition of these phrases is meaningless.

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