Owaisi sets sights on Bengal, TN

After winning five MLA seats in Bihar and a great show in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal polls, Asaduddin Owaisi is aggressively focusing on West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. He has been busy expanding his AIMIM in every nook and corner of the country by travelling extensively. On Saturday, too, he held detailed deliberations with his party leaders and activists from West Bengal in his palatial home in Sastripuram of Hyderabad. He told The Sunday Guardian, “I don’t have plans to contest in Assam and Kerala since our friendly parties are there and doing great service to the people. My party won’t contest in Delhi polls in near future. Last time too we contested one seat in Tamil Nadu. We will let you know our plans in West Bengal. We had a good performance in Bihar. I am not on the B-team of any political party.” After success in Bihar , Owaisi plans to contest in 25 to 30 seats in the Tamil Nadu Assembly polls. The state unit plans to have alliance with DMK. AIMIM wants to contest in Bengal polls since many areas of the state are dominated by Muslims and Dalits. After meeting Bengal leaders, Owaisi tweeted, “Held a very fruitful meeting today with AIMIM West Bengal party functionaries. I have taken their detailed views on upcoming polls and the political situation in the state. Thankful to all of them for participating in the meet.”

Muslims, Dalits and poor OBCS are AIMIM’S major vote banks. Due to support from Hindus of marginalised communities , AIMIM could win 44 corporate seats out of the contested 51 in Hyderabad polls. In Hyderabad headquarters of Darussalam, doors are always open for people and usually Owaisi and his men sit in the office and help people. On an average, 1,000 people meet them daily in the office with requests. After getting a good number of seats in the Hyderabad municipal polls, his party men started working from the next day itself, attending to public needs.

For decades, AIMIM was confined to Hyderabad, but in recent years, it has managed to venture into Bihar and Maharastra, tapping into Muslim and Dalit frustration againt the present dispensations. Owaisi has emerged as a vocal champion of Muslims and Dalits in the country. Owaisi said, “Opposition parties like Congress failed to fight against the Modi government. They are pseudo seculars and always threaten the minorites for votes. The minorities are considered as vote bank in the country. We are reduced to the level of second class citizens.” Owaisi’s openness attracts the youth. Spokesperson Waris Pathhan said, “Not only in Muslim dominated areas or in Bihar, wherever we contest, we get a good response. We have improved our numbers. In Maharastra, too, we managed to improve our vote share substantially. Leave the seats, every vote is important for us.” Buoyed by the performance in Bihar, Owaisi has asked AIMIM’S Bihar functionaries to ensure that the party builds organisational support in all districts. The process to set up district-level panels has begun. AIMIM’S strategy is to form an alliance with a Dalit party in other states like it formed in Maharastra in 2019 polls and in Bihar recently. Owaisi denied that AIMIM is a religious party and accused BJP of being a religious party. He said: “In the GHMC polls, 48 BJP leaders have been elected as corporators, but none of them is from the Muslim community, whereas out of 44 AIMIM corporators, three are Hindus—one of them, elected the third time from AIMIM, is a Hindu. Which is the religious party ? Which is a communal party ?” Owaisi further said: “Many alleged hat I am a vote-cutter and supporter of BJP. They made the same kind of allegations when we contested in Bihar. Every time the AIMIM contests an election outside Hyderabad, be it in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, it faces the charge of cutting into Muslim votes, thereby indirectly benefiting the BJP. Why did not Congress win the seats it contested? We contested only 20 seats in Bihar; why didn’t the Mahagathbandhan win the remaining seats?” The AIMIM is gearing up for poll battles in Bengal, UP and Tamil Nadu. Owaisi said: “I will fight in West Bengal, UP and every election in the country. Do I need to ask anyone’s permission to fight the polls?”

Unlike his grandfather Abdul Wahed Owaisi and his father, Salahuddin Owaisi, a six-time MP, who never looked beyond the Muslim dominated old city of Hyderabad, Asaduddin has been expanding the party base to other states to build a pan-india appeal. AIMIM was founded in 1927 to promote socio-economic and educational development of Muslims in Hyderabad. It was revived in 1958 with a new constitution by Owaisi’s grandfather, and renamed as AIMIM to fight for the rights of the minorities as enshrined in the Constitution.