All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen supremo Assaduddin Owaisi on Sunday visited Furfura Sharif in Bengal's Hooghly district to hold discussions about the state’s political scenario. He discussed the upcoming assembly polls with prominent Muslim leader Abbas Siddiqui, sources in his party said.

Owaisi, who has announced that AIMIM will contest individually in the state during the polls, visited Bengal for the first time following the move.

“Owaisi wanted to keep the meeting a secret as we were apprehensive that the TMC government would stop him from exiting the airport. From Kolkata airport, he went straight to Hooghly to meet Abbas Siddiqui. He will leave for Hyderabad in the afternoon,” AIMIM state secretary Zameerul Hassan said.

The leader had earlier decided to hold a virtual meeting with Siddiqui, but changed his mind at the eleventh hour to fly down to Bengal and meet him in person.

Siddiqui, a pirzada (religious leader) from Furfura Sharif, has been speaking out against the state government over several issues in recent times.

According to the sources, he is planning to float a minority outfit of his own.

Owaisi, whose party put up a good show during Bihar polls last year -- bagging five seats in the region bordering Bengal -- might have also held talks with Siddiqui on a possible seat-sharing deal, they said.

The AIMIM chief's visit to Furfura Sharif, however, evoked sharp reactions from the ruling TMC.

The AIMIM is nothing but a proxy of the BJP. Owaisi is well aware that Muslims here are mostly Bengali-speaking, and won't support him. He is trying to forge ties with Abbas Siddiqui, but that won't yield any result,” Trinamul MP Sougata Roy said.

“Muslims in Bengal stand firmly by Mamata Banerjee,” the senior TMC leader asserted.

A deciding factor in nearly 100-110 seats in the state, minorities especially Muslims have acted as a bulwark of the TMC against its rivals till 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Prominent Muslim leaders in the state, nonetheless, have claimed that equations are likely to change with the entry of the AIMIM.

According to a senior leader in the Hyderabad-based party, Owaisi has seen in West Bengal a fertile ground for his expansion plans, as Muslims constitute around 30 per cent of the state's population.

Of the 30 per cent, however, at least 24 per cent are Bengali-speaking Muslims.