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AIMIM to contest Bihar polls from Seemanchal



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AIMIM to contest Bihar polls from Seemanchal
September 18, 2015
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Much is being discussed over Asaduddin Owaisi’s All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) entry into Bihar this elections. Rightly so. His party’s debut in the Maharashtra assembly elections last year had upset many calculations as it had succeeded in weaning away a section of Muslim and Dalit voters in the state.  Out of the 24 seats that it had contested in the state, it had won two, which many considered to be a wake-up call for other political parties. Ever since, it has continued its good show in Maharashtra, penetrating wide and deep into the state’s political space. Only in April this year, in the elections to the 113-member Aurangabad Municipal Corporation, it won an impressive 25 of the 54 seats it contested. In the process, it ate up the votes of the “secular” parties – the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party whose strength was reduced from 30 to 13 and they were respectively pushed to third and fourth spots as AIMIM went on to occupy the major Opposition block in the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena ruled AMC.
AIMIM to contest bihar polls from Seemanchal
Like in Maharashtra, Owaisi has decided to field 24 candidates in the Seemanchal region of Bihar in AIMIM’s debut election in the state, in a bid to gather stakes outside Telangana and Andhra Pradesh by pitching himself as the voice of Indian Muslims. Hence, the selection of Seemanchal in Bihar is indeed seems a calculated ploy given the Muslim predominance in the region comprising Araria, Purnea, Kishanganj and Katihar districts. Of these four districts, Kishanganj bordering Bangladesh has an overwhelming 67.98 per cent Muslim population while Araria and Katihar have well over forty per cent Muslim population (42.98% and 44.47% respectively), and Purnea, nearly 40 per cent Muslim population. In all, at least 10 of the 24 assembly seats in Seemanchal are dominated by Muslims and this is a significant chunk that AIMIM has targeted by making “justice of Seemanchal” its main poll plank,“We will demand a regional development board under Article 371 of the constitution for the overall development of Seemanchal.”
More than the BJP, Owaisi’s entry has rattled the so called “secular brigade” in Bihar who now fear consolidation of Hindu votes – thus far split into various castes, as well as a division in Muslim votes that would upset the caste based calculations – the hallmark of Bihar elections, and consequently harm their poll prospects considering that Owaisi, a Member of Parliament from Hyderabad is widely considered a polarizing figure. There is all likelihood that he will resort to firebrand speeches that he is known for. He in the past was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “anti-Muslim” sentiments. His younger brother and AIMIM legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi was once even arrested for his hate speech.
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Yet while Seemanchal accounts for hardly 10 per cent of the total seats in Bihar Assembly, Owaisi’s fiery election speeches in the region could well have a much wider impact in the state.
Had Owaisi not been in the picture — and even with SP and NCP walking out the alliance – the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Janata Dal (United) and Congress Mahagathbandhan or grand alliance had been cautiously hopeful of making some gains in the region.
This is what makes the “secular” brigade or the Mahagathbandhan cagey. Although they had fared miserably in Seemanchal in the 2010 state elections where the Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal could win only two and one seats respectively (The JD-U, then an ally of the BJP though had won four assembly seats from the region then), they were expecting better prospects this time considering that the BJP had lost its three Lok Sabha seats — Araria, Purnea and Katihar — in the 2014 polls.
Reports that AIMIM may even join hands with the third front comprising Nationalist Congress Party and Samajwadi Party that would further eat up their vote share in the region too causes worries to the RJD-JD(U)-Congress  combine. Understandably the Mahagathbandhan has reacted sharply to Owaisi’s entry into the fray in Bihar. Senior RJD leader Neyamatullah even went to the extent of claiming that Owaisi’s decision to contest polls only from Seemanchal was a part of a conspiracy. JD(U) spokesman KC Tyagi went on to say that voters should be “wary of BJP agents”, suggesting as if Owaisi  was a BJP plant.
The AIMIM boss has dismissed such speculations claiming, “I dare anybody to prove I have taken money from the RSS and the BJP to contest the Bihar elections. The allegations are shocking…(Rashtirya Janata Dal Supremo) Lalu (Yadav) and (Bihar Chief Minister and JD-U leader) Nitish (Kumar)are asking the MIM that why we are fighting the elections, but they are not asking the same to Mulayam.”
Interestingly, reports have appeared in sections of media in the poll bound state suggesting there is no need for Owaisi in Bihar because “Muslims feel pretty safe in Bihar” and that the state has not seen any major communal riot since the 1989 Bhagalpur riots. However, such arguments hold no good and Owaisi ridiculed such reports stating in a TV show recently, whether the protection of life and limb was some kind of favour shown by “secularists” to Muslims?
What is significant though is that Owaisi is pitching AIMIM as a party of not just Indian Muslims but also Dalits – “I want the broad alliance of the two groups to take on the BJP.” He had attempted to do so in Maharashtra with considerable success and this is what has worried even the BJP-National Democratic Alliance in Bihar which had fared well in Seemanchal and won 13 seats in the 2010 assembly elections. Its ally and Dalit-focussed Lok Janshakti Party, too had then won two seats in the region and their then ally, the JD(U) had then won four seats.
Little surprise, therefore, that the BJP-ally Lok Janshakti Party MP Chirag Paswan acknowledged that “Owaisi is eyeing a specific vote bank, which is a strong social support base of (prominent Dalit leader) LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan”. BJP spokesperson and former union minister Shahnawaz Hussain said the BJP was “ready to give tough fight” to Owaisi in Seemanchal where “Muslims in sizeable numbers will support us”.
Obviously Owaisi has ruffled many feathers with his maiden entry in Bihar elections. But can he really succeed? If so, he could well be compared with the All India Democratic United Front (AIUDF) chief Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, whose party has done remarkably well in Assam where ever since winning 10 of the 126 seats in 2006, it progressed to emerge as the second largest party in the Assam Legislative Assembly by winning 18 seats in 2011. In 2014, it further increased its tally of MPs from one in 2009 to three in 2014.
How well Owaisi fares in Bihar will go some way in foretelling hold on the Muslims in the country. He has already set his eyes on the state elections in two states with significant Muslim population – West Bengal in 2016 and Uttar Pradesh in 2017. Bihar can be his stepping stone and one thing is for sure that he has indeed set the cat among the pigeons.
- See more at: http://www.elections.in/blog/aimim-tocontest-bihar-polls-from-seemanchal/#sthash.MsdAQDhm.dpuf

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