Ram and the Naib Imam were not available for comment but a close associate of Ram confirmed that the meeting had taken place and said it lasted three hours.
Though the Naim Imam and his father, Imam Abdullah Bukhari, could achieve little in 1993, when they appealed to UP's Muslims to vote for the Janata Dal, they could perhaps help the BSP to pull in Muslim support by focussing on Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda's recent meeting with Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray.
Ram's rival, Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav, has justified the meeting saying that it was a personal one. Ram and the Congress hope that this should alienate the Muslims from the Samajwadi Party and the Dal.
Ironically, Ram's meeting with the Imam was arranged by Dal national secretariat member and former Rajya Sabha MP Meem Afzal. Afzal, who is close to the Imam, owed his Rajya Sabha membership to the Imam's recommendation to former Prime Minister VP Singh.
Though the Imam had been cut up with the Congress over the Babri Masjid demolition, he had been placated before the Lok Sabha elections, when he appealed to Muslims to vote for any party which could defeat the BJP.
On the flip side, the Imam, who had thrown his considerable weight behind the Janata Dal before the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, is upset with Gowda for having met with Thackeray. The Naib Imam had criticised the meeting during a sermon at the Jama Masjid.
As far as the SP is concerned, Mulayam Singh remains in the Imam's bad books ever since the 1993 assembly elections, when he publicly ridiculed the Imam after the latter urged Muslims to vote for the Janata Dal and against the SP-BSP combine.
