AAP’s Shazia Ilmi sparks controversy

Ahead of the critical fifth phase of 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Aam Aadmi Party leader Shazia Ilmi has sparked a new controversy by saying “Muslims ought to be communal this time”.

In an  YouTube video, Shazia Ilmi, has been seen urging Muslim leaders, “I’m saying Muslims are very secular. Muslims need to be communal.  A Muslim isn’t communal – doesn’t vote for his own.  Arvind Kejriwal is one of you. You are too …don’t be this secular. Look after your own homes (interests).”

“Here helping the Congress win, there someone else. Please do not be so secular. Muslims are secular. They will continue to vote for others. Other parties don’t do such things?” she said.

Although we cannot verify the authenticity of the video, but Shazia Ilmi came forward to defend her remarks.

“I was making fun of this word ‘secularism’ which is used all the time. I said Muslims never think of themselves, they have become political slaves to a party,” Shazia Ilmi said.

“Communal means ‘of the community’, not in a hateful manner. What I was telling them is not to be a political slave to a party. Not to live in fear,”  she further told to a newspaper.

AAp tried to distance itself from Ilmi’s comments.

“AAP does not believe in this kind of politics nor does it endorse it,”   AAP wrote in Twitter.

AAP  leader Manish Sisodia said, “It is wrong. She should not have said it. The party does not believe in this.”

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