New Delhi: The Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM, four of whose five MLAs elected in the 2020 Bihar assembly elections had defected to the RJD, has sent feelers to the Lalu Yadav-led party and the Congress to join their Mahagathbandhan in the “larger interest of secular” parties in the poll-bound state.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen’s Bihar president Akhtarul Iman told ThePrint he has approached both the Mahagathbandhan allies to contest the polls together so there is no split in secular votes and the AIMIM is not dubbed as a B-team of the BJP.
“We want to show our sincerity towards fighting the polls together with the Mahagathbandhan. Now, the ball is in their court.”
“The RJD has taken away our MLAs. But we are ready to forget that and start afresh. If they do not accept our offer they cannot later say we divided Muslim votes. We are ready to contest more than 50 seats in our stronghold areas and Seemanchal,“ he said.
The AIMIM contested the 2020 assembly polls in alliance with the Upendra Kushwaha-led Rashtriya Lok Samta Party and the BSP. The Owaisi-led party created a flutter as it won five of the 20 seats it contested, securing 14.28 percent votes in total in those seats.
Asked about the AIMIM’s willingness to join the alliance now, RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari said, “The people of Bihar have decided to make Tejashwi Yadav chief minister. Lalu Prasad has fought communal forces throughout his life. He never compromised. Some ‘vote katua’ party (a party that does not a have realistic chance of winning but contests polls just to cut into other parties’ votes) cannot harm people’s aspiration. They (AIMIM) has expressed desire, the party will look into it.”
The five seats the AIMIM won in 2020 are in the Muslim-dominated Seemanchal districts of Araria, Purnea, Katihar and Kishanganj. The BSP won only one seat out of 78 it contested, but the RLSP failed to open its account despite contesting 99.
However, four AIMIM MLAs—Muhammed Izhar Asfi (Kochadamam), Shahnawaz Alam (Jokihat), Syed Ruknuddin (Baisi) and Azhar Nayeemi (Bahadurgunj)— switched over to the RJD in June 2022, leaving Amour MLA Iman as the lone party representative in the assembly.
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The Seemanchal story
Bihar’s Seemanchal region, bordering West Bengal, is dominated by Muslim population. Kishanganj district has 67 percent Muslim voters, Katihar 38 percent, Araria 32 percent and Purnia 30 percent.
The AIMIM performed well in Muslim-dominated constituencies in 2020, which, many argued, cut into the RJD’s and the Congress’s traditional voter base, thus benefitting the BJP and its NDA ally JD(U).
When the results were announced 10 November 2020, the NDA won a majority in the 243-seat assembly, but its tally of 125 was only marginally above the majority mark of 122.
In those elections, the RJD contested 144 seats and won 75, emerging as the single largest party. Among its Mahagathbandhan allies, the Congress contested 70 seats and won 19, CPI-ML fought on 19 seats and won 12, and the CPI contested six and won two. The CPM contested four seats and won two. The alliance won 110 seats in total.
The grouping’s composition has changed since.
The Mukesh Sahni-led Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP)—which contested 11 seats in the 2020 polls as an NDA partner and won four—has joined the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan now.
Pashupati Kumar Paras-led Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) also quit the NDA in April and, according to sources, he too is knocking at the door of the Mahagathbandhan to join the alliance.
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Seat-sharing major roadblock
Sources say the AIMIM is demanding 20-25 seats in the Mahagathbandhan which can prove to be the deal-breaker. “The main problem is how to accommodate these many partners,” said a source in the RJD.
“The AIMIM is demanding 25 seats and the RJD cannot offer more than 10. The RJD is willing to give 50 to the Congress, 20 fewer than what it got in 2020, and the Left parties can get 30. The VIP can get 8 to 10 seats. But, the Congress is demanding more, and so are the Left parties,” he added.
Meanwhile, Akhtarul Iman told ThePrint he has spoken to his party president Owaisi about the state unit’s desire and he “gave us full freedom to initiate talks with the RJD and the Congress”.
He said he has reached out to Tejashwi Yadav through some RJD MLAs, and if they show a “big heart” there will be no split of votes in the Muslim-dominated constituencies.
He said the AIMIM had requested to join the Mahagathbandhan in the 2020 elections too, “but the RJD did not send any confirmation and we fought separately”.
“It is another attempt from our end to forge an alliance so later they cannot call us a B team of the BJP,” he said.
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‘No vote katua’
Owaisi has always vehemently rejected any attempt to dub his party as vote ‘katua’. After the results were announced in 2020, he had said that on the 20 seats his party contested, the Mahagathbandhan won the maximum nine, while the NDA won six and his party just five.
On all these six seats—Raniganj, Pranpur, Barari, Sahebganj, Narpatganj and Chhatapur—the victory margins for NDA candidates were higher than the votes polled by the AIMIM candidates, indicating the AIMIM did not particularly harm the prospects of Mahagathbandhan candidates.
And the margins were significantly higher on three of these seats—Sahebganj, Narpatganj and Chhatapur.
In the 2015 polls, the AIMIM contested six seats, all in the Seemanchal region. Its candidates suffered heavy defeats, with only one managing to save his deposit.
They AIMIM argues it did not harm Mahagathbandhan’s secular votes then either as five of the six seats it contested—Kishanganj, Baisi, Amour, Kochadhaman and Raniganj —were won by the candidates of the then Congress-RJD-Janata Dal (United) alliance. The sixth seat, Balrampur, was won by the CPI-ML.
D.M. Diwakar, a former head of Patna’s AN Sinha Institute, said Muslim voters make their decisions wisely.
“There is no doubt that Muslims know where to vote and how not to waste their votes. The RJD has much bigger traction than the AIMIM among the Muslims. But Owaisi is a hero among the youths and he can spoil it (for the RJD) in the Seemanchal area like in 2020 as he has taken a strong position on the Waqf bill. But if they fight together, the NDA might suffer.”
Addressing a rally 3 May in the Seemanchal region, Owaisi urged people to teach a lesson to the NDA and the RJD in the upcoming polls. He claimed his party would win all 24 seats in the Seemanchal region this time.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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