Owaisi’s Revenge

With the Rashtriya Janata Dal narrowly losing the

Gopalganj seat in Lalu

Prasad’s home town, among the WhatsApp messages circulating in Patna was one about Owaisi ka badla. In November 2020, when the Tejashwi Yadav-led grand alliance fell short of a simple majority, they had pinned the blame on Asaduddin

Owaisi’s AIMIM (All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen) winning the five minoritydominated seats. In June 2022, Lalu’s son settled the score by poaching four of the five AIMIM legislators in Bihar, regaining the single-largest party status for the RJD. Now, four months later, Owaisi’s party seems to have got its own back, when the AIMIM candidate bagged more than 12,000 votes in Gopalganj, ensuring the BJP’s victory over the RJD by less than 2,000 votes.