Owaisi Meerut rally: AIMIM chief vows to ‘first remove Yogi’ and proposes Chandrashekhar Azad as CM face
He asked leaders of the Samajwadi Party and Congress to join the front, saying he was prepared to make sacrifices, PTI reported.
Written with AI assistance from the sources listed below, then checked against them and reviewed by an editor. How our newsroom works
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said at a rally in Meerut on Saturday that his party will first remove Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and then, with Chandrashekhar Azad, fight to remove Prime Minister Narendra Modi, PTI reported. The Owaisi Meerut rally was held at Nauchandi Grounds, ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.
Owaisi Meerut rally: what he said about Yogi Adityanath and Modi
“We will first remove Yogi,” Owaisi said, according to PTI. He added: “We will hoist our flag in Lucknow.” He urged support for the alliance between his party and Azad’s Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram), called the Samajik Parivartan Morcha, and proposed Azad as its chief ministerial candidate. Bhim Army president Vinay Ratan Singh was also present at the gathering.
Owaisi said his party would “neither bow our heads before any political party nor beg from anyone”. He asked leaders of the Samajwadi Party and Congress to join the front, saying he was prepared to make sacrifices to accommodate them.
Attacks on the Samajwadi Party and Congress
Owaisi referred to the 2013 communal violence in Muzaffarnagar. He claimed that 50,000 people were rendered homeless and that the then Samajwadi Party government failed to give them any assistance, PTI said. He added that despite the party having 47 Muslim MLAs, nothing was done for the victims.
On the Congress, he referred to incidents in Hashimpura and Maliana in Meerut in May 1987. He claimed that 42 Muslims in Hashimpura and 72 in Maliana were killed during the Congress’s tenure. These figures are Owaisi’s claims as reported by PTI, which cited no independent source and carried no response from either party.
Key numbers
- 14 November: date of the rally at Nauchandi Grounds in Meerut, per PTI via ThePrint.
- 35 per cent: Muslim share of Meerut’s population, according to India TV Hindi, which cited no source.
- 26 November: date of the next large rally, in Lucknow, per ETV Bharat.
Background: The Azad Samaj Party and the third front
PTI said the two parties recently formed the Samajik Parivartan Morcha, with Owaisi proposing Azad as its chief ministerial candidate. India TV said Meerut also saw a rally by Yogi Adityanath the same day, at a programme for ex-servicemen, and called the Owaisi event his first Uttar Pradesh programme since the alliance. NIS has covered another political row this week: Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Summit speech and the BJP’s reply.
What happens next
After the Owaisi Meerut rally, the alliance plans another large rally in Lucknow on 26 November, ETV Bharat reported. The reports reviewed carry no response from the BJP, the Samajwadi Party or Congress.
The rally launches the AIMIM and Azad Samaj Party campaign in western Uttar Pradesh, where Meerut is reported to have a 35 per cent Muslim population, and sets the new front against both the BJP and the Opposition ahead of the 2027 polls. The riot figures are Owaisi's own claims and drew no reported response, so how the SP and Congress answer is the next thing to watch.