Kolkata, Dec 6 The All India Secular Front (AISF) is open for a conditional alliance for the West Bengal assembly polls scheduled next year, with the new party to be floated by now-suspended Trinamool Congress legislator from Bharatpur in minority-dominated Murshidabad district, Humayun Kabir, this month.
"Kabir should refrain from making communal statements from time to time. He should also withdraw the communal statements that he made before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Right at this moment, there is no room for immediately entering into an understanding with his new party. Our condition is that he should first withdraw his communal statements and also refrain from making such statements in the future. Only then will the question of initiating discussion on a possible electoral alliance arise," the sole AISF representative in the West Bengal assembly, Naushad Siddiqui, told media persons on Saturday.
Before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Kabir said at a public meeting that Hindus in the minority-dominated Murshidabad district would be “cut and thrown into the Bhagirathi River.”
Kabir had already announced that he would soon tender his resignation as the legislator from Bharatpur and on December 22 he would float his new political party and announce the names of its office bearers.
When asked whether AISF could take advantage of the possible division in minority votes, especially in Murshidabad district, because of the suspension of Kabir from the party, Siddiqui said that his party did not believe in differentiating voters based on religion.
“We only speak about larger public interests. In West Bengal, neither the Hindus nor the Muslims are happy under Trinamool Congress rule. Now, Mamata Banerjee is busy constructing temples to allure the Hindu voters, Kabir has been suspended from the party not because of ideological reasons, but again to allure the Hindu voters. But our Hindu brothers will not be tricked by such stances. At the same time, a large section of the Muslim voters has made up their minds to throw Trinamool Congress out of power in 2026,” Siddiqui said.
--IANS
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