‘Painting Mumbra green’ remark: BJP asks AIMIM’s young corporator to go to Pakistan

A hate campaign erupted against AIMIM’s newly elected Mumbra corporator Sahar Shaikh after her victory speech, as BJP leader Navneet Rana spearheaded attacks by alleging that she had made a communal remark and by asserting that those who wished to “turn everything green” should “go to Pakistan,”

Shaikh, among the youngest corporators elected from Mumbra, soon faced sustained online abuse, while BJP leaders Kirit Somaiya and Niranjan Davkhare escalated the controversy by filing a police complaint accusing her of promoting communal politics and attempting to divide people along religious lines, thereby framing her electoral rhetoric as a threat to social harmony.

Responding to the backlash, Shaikh maintained that her remarks had been deliberately misrepresented, clarifying that her reference to the colour green was solely linked to the AIMIM party flag and not intended as a religious statement, while also reiterating her secular credentials and urging political opponents to refrain from communalising routine electoral expressions.

During her victory speech, she had spoken of strengthening AIMIM’s presence in future municipal elections and had used the metaphor of painting Mumbra green, a phrase that she later explained was meant to symbolise political consolidation under her party’s banner rather than any form of religious assertion or exclusion.

Shaikh further questioned what she described as selective outrage, arguing that several other political parties, including the JD(U), RJD and Jannayak Janata Party, also use green flags without attracting similar controversy when their leaders employ comparable language to signal electoral dominance or organisational expansion.

The AIMIM leader was elected from Ward No. 30 in the Thane Municipal Corporation elections, contesting on an All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen ticket, and she defeated candidates backed by rival factions of the Nationalist Congress Party in the Kalwa–Mumbra belt, an area long considered a stronghold of four-time local MLA Jitendra Awhad and marked by a dominant Muslim population.