'If My Flag Was Orange...': AIMIM Corporator On "Paint Mumbra Green" Remark

Clarifying her remark after it sparked a furore, 22-year-old AIMIM Corporator Sahar Yunus Shaikh said she only spoke about turning Mumbra green because that is the colour of her party flag. 

Leaders from several parties slammed Shaikh's statement, accusing her of attempting to give things a communal colour after the AIMIM won five seats in the Thane Municipal Corporation elections from the Muslim-dominated suburb of Mumbra. 

In her victory speech, Shaikh had said in Hindi, "My request to you is that when the elections happen again after five years, you have to paint Mumbra green in such a way that these people are defeated. Every candidate, five years on, should be from the AIMIM because the elections have shown the Majlis' strength. And we get this strength from Allah." 

Speaking to NDTV's Padmaja Joshi on Wednesday, the AIMIM corporator said the statement was meant in a "pun-intended" manner. 

"I actually wanted to tell people that we have won five seats in Mumbra this time and we want more after five years. The colour of my party flag is green. If the colour was orange, I would have said I want to paint Mumbra orange... I wanted people to know the colour of my flag. Why don't you ask parties like the JDU, RJD or the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), whose flags are also green? When they say they want to paint the area green, why doesn't the media have a problem with that?" she asked.

When it was pointed out to her that painting something saffron could also be taken to be a communal call, and this would apply to her statement as well, Shaikh argued that some people were taking it in that light because she was wearing a hijab when she said it. 

"The speech was my winning speech and I was emotional because I had won despite the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) denying me a ticket. All of this was an accumulation of what had happened in the past. I was actually trying to target the NCP (SP) and Ajit Pawar's NCP so that people know their flags are of a different colour," she explained. 

On her party chief Asaduddin Owaisi's statement that he wanted to see a burqa-clad woman become the mayor and the prime minister, Shaikh said, "I have never played Hindu-Muslim politics. My politics is of development and upliftment, and my campaign was also based on that... Owaisi never said a Hindu girl, or a Muslim girl who does not wear the hijab, should not be mayor."

'Why The Allergy?'

AIMIM leader Waris Pathan also jumped to Shaikh's defence.

"What did that young woman say that was so wrong? Sahar is an educated, sensible girl who achieved a historic feat by defeating a veteran heavyweight. She spoke about our party's growth. Our party colour is green - why is there such a deep-seated allergy to a colour that is also a proud part of the Indian national flag?"

Pathan asserted that the AIMIM's rise in Maharashtra is not a "conspiracy" but a result of inclusive politics. He claimed that the party, which currently holds 125 seats across various municipal bodies, is on a trajectory to cross the 300-400 mark in the near future.

"They are losing sleep because they cannot digest the fact that we won votes from every religion. We have dismantled their strongholds in places like Mumbra because people want change, not hate," he said.

(With inputs from Saurabh Vaktania)