Small parties may be open to allying with AIMIM
Lucknow/Hyderabad siyasat.net
A day after the Aam Aadmi Party’s official announcement to enter the electoral fray of Uttar Pradesh in 2022, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi landed in Lucknow to sound the poll bugle.
Owaisi met an ex-BJP ally — Om Prakash Rajbhar of the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party — on Wednesday. This meeting is being viewed as the beginning of the consolidation of small outfits in the state. Owaisi and Arvind Kejriwal’s presence will further fragment the UP Assembly contest. Four big player — BJP, SP, BSP and Congress — are already in the fray.
After winning 5 seats in the recent Bihar Assembly election, AIMIM hopes to make gains in UP. The party had drawn a blank in 2017.
“The ward that CM Adityanath visited (to address a poll rally), the BJP lost all 3 seats… Where Amit Shah went, the BJP lost the seat. I am not here to change names, I am here to win hearts,” Owaisi took a dig at Yogi Adityanath who had promised in Hyderabad he would change the city’s name to Bhagyanagar if BJP won the Hyderabad civic election.
Ramesh Dixit, a political analyst, says, “AAP will not be able to do much in UP, but Owaisi will surely make a difference in 2022 poll. His party will dent the vote-bank of Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party considerably. It will eventually help the BJP.”
A senior journalist based in Lucknow says, “MIM is believed to be the BJP’s B team. Owaisi will polarise the election. It will likely contest Muslim-dominated seats and throw surprises.”
Athar Hussain, another political analyst, thinks otherwise. “Owaisi might get a fraction of votes but I don’t think the Muslim voters who have traditionally been voting for the SP, BSP or Congress will switch loyalty to a Hyderabad-based party.”
Unlike West Bengal, the AIMIM has contested elections in Uttar Pradesh before. In the 2017 elections, it contested over 30 seats but managed to do well only in one – Sambhal, where Ziaur Rahman Barq, the grandson of Shafiqur Rahman Barq, was contesting. Shafiqur Rahman Barq has since rejoined the Samajwadi Party (SP) and is presently its MP from Sambhal.
Barq’s exit meant that the AIMIM doesn’t have a prominent local leader in UP who could play the role Akhtarul Iman did in Seemanchal.
The AIMIM did perform reasonably well in the bypoll to the Pratapgarh seat in 2019, indicating that it has since grown in UP.
The party actively participated in the anti-CAA protests in Uttar Pradesh and a few of its functionaries, including Mau district President Mohammad Asif Chandan, have been arrested by the police.
Like Bihar, the SP, the BSP and the Congress may be more vulnerable to Owaisi’s attacks on the CAA than probably the TMC. This could potentially work in its advantage.
There’s another possibility in UP – that after its success in Bihar, parties may be open to allying with Owaisi.
In Bihar, the AIMIM was part of the Grand Secular Democratic Front, that comprised two Uttar Pradesh-based parties – the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) – besides Upendra Kushwaha’s RLSP and Devendra Yadav’s Samajwadi Janata Dal.
Owaisi’s party was the best performer in the alliance winning five seats followed by the BSP with one. Interestingly, all 6 GSDF MLAs are Muslims and account for about a third of the Muslim representation in the Bihar Assembly.
In comparison, an alliance with a smaller party like the SBSP seems more feasible. Elections in UP are due in February 2022
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