AIMIM to launch poll campaign on March 4

Kolkata: After All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi's first rally in the city got cancelled, the party would now launch its poll campaign on March 4.

Earlier, Owaisi was scheduled to address a public meeting at Metiabruz Pink Square on February 25. "We did not get the permission to conduct the rally. Owaisi will come to Kolkata on March 4 and start the Bengal Assembly election campaign," said AIMIM Bengal observer, Mohammed Majid Hussain.

He reiterated that all the ground level work for conducting the election campaign was complete. The AIMIM supremo is likely to reveal the name of the candidates contesting in the upcoming elections.

Refuting allegations that AIMIM is acting as team B of the saffron party, Hussain said: "We work for the development of people. AIMIM doesn't play caste-based politics like BJP. We are open to alliance with any party to defeat BJP in the upcoming elections."

The former Hyderabad Mayor's statement comes a month after Abbas Siddiqui, influential cleric of Hooghly's Furfura Sharif, floated a new political party named Indian Secular Front (ISF) to contest the polls. In January, Owaisi had met Siddiqui. Last week, Congress and Left Front, during a joint press conference, announced that the exact seat-sharing ratio could not be announced as leaders of the Indian Secular Front (ISF), NCP and RJD had expressed their willingness to support the "secular" front in the forthcoming polls.