Top News

'Do Not Intimidate Muslims': BJP's Kiren Rijiju Amid AIMIM’s Push to Join Mahagathbandhan Ahead Of Bihar Polls
ABP Live News | July 4, 2025 6:41 PM CST

Union Minister of Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju said on Friday that BJP is secular and that it does not conduct politics on the basis of caste and religion. The recent comments by the senior BJP leader come after AIMIM Bihar president Akhtarul Iman wrote to RJD chief Lalu Yadav to include his party in the Mahagathbandhan.

Reacting to the development, Rijiju said that such parties are communal and that Muslims are just as safe in India as Hindus.

"We are the ones who are secular. We do not conduct our politics based on caste or religion. Such parties are communal... Muslims are just as safe in India as Hindus. The freedom that every religion gets in India is unmatched...," Rijiju said, as quoted by news agency ANI.

Earlier, AIMIM expressed its willingness to join the Mahagathbandhan in Bihar, which currently includes the RJD, Congress, and Left parties, ahead of the upcoming assembly elections. AIMIM's Bihar state president Akhtarul Iman, the party's lone MLA in the state, has written to RJD president Lalu Prasad, formally requesting inclusion in the grand alliance.

In a letter dated July 2, which party leaders have shared on social media, Iman has said the inclusion of AIMIM in Bihar's prototype of the INDIA bloc "will prevent a split in secular votes".

"This will ensure that the next government in the state is formed by the Mahagathbandhan", Iman has claimed, adding that his party had tried to join the coalition in the last Assembly polls, too, and this time he (Owaisi) has already expressed his wish to "leaders of the Congress and the Left over the phone".

In the 2020 assembly elections, the AIMIM contested in alliance with former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the now-defunct Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) headed by former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha, who is now in the NDA.

READ NEXT
Cancel OK