AIMIM candidate Tahir Hussain campaigning in Mustafabad on Wednesday.
| Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA
Around 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Tahir Hussain, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) candidate from Mustafabad, stepped out of his office wearing the party banner that read “haqdaar ko haq dilaana hai, nirdosh ka saath nibhaana hai (have to get the rightful their due, have to stand by the innocent).”
Holding a microphone in his right hand, his left hand being gripped tightly by a policeman, the former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor told a gathering of 100-150 people: “I gave 10 years to AAP, but when I had a problem, forget helping me, AAP stopped even taking my name.” He said that there is a “stain” on him, but he is innocent, and his belief in the Constitution will see him walk out of prison.
Taking on his former party, Mr. Hussain added, “Promises had been made about making Delhi’s roads like those in Paris. But the condition of the roads is worse than when I left five years ago. No government has worked for us,” he said.
The AIMIM candidate was granted parole to campaign for the Assembly poll by the Supreme Court a day earlier. The court imposed several conditions on when and how he would be brought in and taken back to Tihar Jail, where he is lodged in connection with the February 2020 north-east Delhi communal riots, in which 53 people died and over 700 were injured.
The former AAP councillor has been named in several cases, including one regarding the murder of an Intelligence Bureau officer, and has been in judicial custody since March 2020.
Surrounded by a cordon of around 10 policemen, Mr. Hussain told the gathering, “In Mustafabad, only one person can defeat the BJP and that is Tahir Hussain. In Delhi, the election is for 70 seats. But the fight on two seats — Okhla and Mustafabad — is a battle against zulm (oppression) in the country.”
The AIMIM has fielded candidates on both Assembly seats, which have sizeable Muslim voters. Shifa-ur-Rehman in Okhla is also accused in a riots case.
Mr. Hussain’s 25-minute speech, during which he spoke about the need to develop the area, was punctuated several times with “Haji Tahir Hussain Zindabad” slogans.
To make the most of his time out of jail, the former councillor tried to cover as much ground in old and new Mustafabad as he was allowed by the policemen surrounding him.
Just before he stepped out of the office, Mr. Hussain tried hard to convince a policeman to let him conduct a door-to-door campaign, but to no avail. “The area police are objecting to it, and we cannot do anything about it,” he was told.
“I don’t have the money, the means or the time to go everywhere. So, each of you has to become Tahir Hussain,” he told his supporters.
When asked about what he hoped to achieve by contesting the election, Mr. Hussain told The Hindu, “I want to develop Mustafabad and fight for the injustice that has happened to it so far. I want to work on education, health, roads, drains, and get rid of these overhanging wires.”
Soon after, he was escorted to a white police van to be taken back to Tihar Jail.
Published – January 30, 2025 01:23 am IST