Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM ‘B team' tag resurfaces as aide joins Congress

Dual identity In Delhi's political circles, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, led by the Hyderabad member of Parliament, Asaduddin Owaisi, is often portrayed as the Bharatiya Janata Party's 'B team' — an allegation the party has repeatedly rejected. The charge resurfaced after the AIMIM spokesperson, Syed Asim Waqar, considered close to Owaisi, crossed over to the Congress. Waqar justified his move by alleging that while the AIMIM claims to oppose the BJP, its electoral tactics end up hurting anti-BJP forces. Owaisi has long faced allegations that his party fields candidates in key state elections to split the anti-BJP vote, particularly among Muslims. Yet, Owaisi has emerged as one of the BJP's most articulate and combative critics, frequently targeting the prime minister, Narendra Modi, the BJP and the wider sangh parivar. He recently turned Modi's latest foreign honour from Uzbekistan — the country's highest State award for foreign nationals — into a powerful political barb. Congratulating Modi, Owaisi pointed out that the honour came from the country of Babur, the Mughal founder, repeatedly vilified as a foreign invader by the saffron ecosystem. 'Babur belonged to the Fergana Valley in present-day Uzbekistan. The country from which he came is now honouring you,' Owaisi said, urging the sangh parivar to reflect on the irony and reconsider its rhetoric on Babur. ADVERTISEMENT Sweet surprise At the joint media briefing with Narendra Modi, the Belgian PM, Bart De Wever, revealed that his gift for his Indian counterpart had melted. He said, 'I had actually planned to present to Prime Minister Modi a fitting gift — a sculpture of India Gate entirely made out of the best Belgian chocolates. But unlike the real India Gate, which has stood for almost a century, the chocolate version didn't even survive the journey to India.' The choice of the colonial memorial to Indian soldiers who fell in the Great War, said De Wever, was a tribute to their sacrifice for his country. 'On the sculpture, the chocolate version, we enlarged a part of the inscription that commemorates Indian soldiers who fought and fell in Flanders Fields during the First World War.' Staunch critic Sujata Rout Karthikeyan — she is a former civil servant and the wife of VK Pandian, a close aide of the former chief minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik — has sparked a political storm in Odisha with a powerful article in Odia on the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2026. Karthikeyan warned that the state's economy faces severe setbacks due to the Odisha government's failure to collect mining tax arrears owed by companies. She pointed out that despite the Supreme Court in 2024 permitting the recovery of arrears, the state government did not act to collect them. She estimated that Odisha stands to lose nearly one lakh crore rupees in unpaid dues from mining companies, along with an annual revenue loss exceeding Rs 12,000 crore. She also questioned the silence of BJP MPs on the issue. Her aggressive tone has caught state BJP leaders off guard. By combining bureaucratic authority with political sharpness, Karthikeyan has placed the state BJP government on the defensive. Wrong target The noted lawyer, Vrinda Grover, recently found herself in the spotlight after representing the Cockroach Janta Party in the Supreme Court. But a news article featuring a photograph of the senior advocate, Indira Jaisingh, became the subject of discussion on social media when a right-wing account mistook Jaisingh for Grover. Grover was tagged in a post carrying an article about the CBI raid on Jaisingh's office and claimed, 'queen of all cockroaches, Vrinda Grover's FCRA licence got cancelled in 2016'. The post went viral with many critiquing the account for spreading a false narrative. The post also drew Grover's attention, prompting her to quote the account and write: 'How did he manage to get everything wrong?' Troubled times The recent move of the Congress to end its ties with the Raijor Dal, citing a breach of alliance ethics, was not unexpected. The alliance appeared uninspiring from the outset and cracks began to show soon after the six-party Opposition alliance's debacle in the April assembly polls. But the Congress's worry is far from over. The Nagaon Lok Sabha by-polls, which were necessitated because the sitting Congress MP joined the ruling BJP just before the state polls, are looming. However, Congress insiders are happy with the break-up with Raijor Dal but said the party appears 'extremely bereft of ideas, energy, and cohesion' since losing the state polls. With many Congress leaders joining the BJP and the Assam PCC president and sitting Jorhat MP, Gaurav Gogoi, having to divide his time between Delhi and Assam, they claim that hardly any leader is making an impact.