FAKE ALERT: No, BJP hasn’t forged alliance with AIMIM for WB polls

CLAIM
Screengrab of a tweet attributed to the verified handle of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is doing rounds on social media. As per the tweet, BJP and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) have joined hands to fight the upcoming West Bengal (WB) polls as allies.
“We have formed alliance with AIMIM in upcoming WB elections (sic),” reads the tweet purportedly from the BJP.
The screengrab is being shared across platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.


TRUTH
The tweet is fake. It is digitally manufactured. BJP has tweeted or announced nothing that indicates it is allying with AIMIM for WB polls.
VERIFICATION AND METHODOLOGY
On observing the screengrab closely, we found that the handle of the tweet is '@bjp4india', whereas the actual Twitter handle of BJP is '@BJP4India'.

Since the viral tweet is dated November 20, 2020, we looked up all the tweets made by @BJP4India on the same date and found that none of them mentioned alliance with AIMIM for WB elections.
Further, we found no credible news reports about BJP allying with AIMIM. Had BJP made such an announcement, it would have been national news. In fact the last tweet done by BJP mentioning AIMIM was on December 2, 2018.

On the contrary, we found several reports about AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi proposing a pre-poll pact in WB to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee saying that his party will help the ruling TMC defeat the BJP in the 2021 state assembly elections. Times Now reported about it.
VERDICT
Times Fact Check has found that a fake and doctored tweet screengrab is being circulated on social media to claim that BJP has allied with AIMIM to fight upcoming WB polls.