AIMIM's alliance with SJD ahead of Bihar polls may queer pitch for bigger parties

AIMIM’s Hindu candidates had also made their presence felt and got wider acceptability on seats such as Dharavi and Kurla in Maharashtra, having secured over 15% of the votes.
SJD chief Devendra Prasad Yadav (2nd L) along with AIMIM Bihar in-charge Majid Hussain (2nd R) in Patna on Saturday (Photo | PTI)
SJD chief Devendra Prasad Yadav (2nd L) along with AIMIM Bihar in-charge Majid Hussain (2nd R) in Patna on Saturday (Photo | PTI)

PATNA:  The entry of Asaduddin Owaisi’s All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) into Bihar politics in alliance with Devendra Prasad Yadav’s Samajwadi Janata Dal (SJD) ahead of the Assembly elections is seen as an attempt to queer the pitch for other parties in minority-dominated segments of Seemanchal.

The move is going to give heartburns to many parties in the state. The NDA and the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) are avoiding to be vocal against Owaisi’s party but are learnt to have started finding ways to counter the AIMIM at least in Seemanchal’s seven minority-dominated districts.

Owaisi, seeing major poll prospects emerging from these areas, said the AIMIM along with Devendra Prasad Yadav’s SJD will contest the Bihar polls under the United Democratic Secular Alliance (UDSA) and declared to queer the pitches for many of so-called secular parties in the NDA and the Grand Alliance.

Buoyed by the victory in Bihar’s Kishanganj Assembly by-election in 2019, the Hyderabad MP Owaisi has recently announced the intent to fight from as many as 50 Assembly constituencies across the state.

“The results from various assembly segments of Seemanchal areas may or may not be in our favour, but one thing is for sure that we would not allow the so-called parties such as the JD(U), RJD, Congress or BJP to further exploit the people of these least developed areas for their electoral gains,” Owaisi told this newspaper.

The AIMIM president is also trying to make a dent in the Hindu vote bank by raising the issues of unemployment, coronavirus mismanagement and other local issues of developments. “Whoever brands us only being concerned about the minority.

AIMIM’s Hindu candidates had also made their presence felt and got wider acceptability on seats such as Dharavi and Kurla in Maharashtra, having secured over 15% of the votes. And it is also incorrect to say that the AIMIM is only confined to Hyderabad,” he said.

There are around 45 minority-dominated Assembly seats in seven districts of Seemanchal region, including Purnia, Kishanganj, Katihar, Supaul, Araria, Saharsa and Madhepura, from where RJD and Congress candidates had been winning till the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and 2015 Assembly polls.

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