AIMIM is looking forward to increasing its tally of 2 MLAs in the forthcoming Maharashtra assembly elections.
AIMIM has previously hit hands and legs at the Aurangabad Lok Sabha seats from the Shiv Sena in the general elections, the Hyderabad headquartered All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM).
After the successful alliance with the Prakash Ambedkar –led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), the AIMIM is now able to bag a good amount of Muslim and Dalit votes, at the expense of the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
A senior AIMIM functionary said, “Our alliance definitely helped the VBA draw Muslim votes, taking away crucial votes from the Congress and the NCP in seven or eight seats, resulting in their losses. It also impacted the Shiv Sena and BJP’s vote share in a few seats.”
Senior AIMIM leaders said the alliance worked in favour in the general elections, with VBA candidates getting 30,000 to over 100,000 votes in some of the state’s 48 seats.
The VBA is backed by Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Class (OBC) and Muslims.
“The results of the 2019 general elections have emboldened Owaisi. While the Prime Minister and right-wingers talk of consolidating Hindu voters, Owaisi is appealing to Muslims for the vote, and trying to spread his party in different regions,” said Hyderabad-based political analyst Palwai Raghavendra Reddy.
He further added that Owaisi should form an alliance with parties working with the weaker sections of the society. The state elections are slated to be held around October.
While the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Ashok Mahadeorao Nete bagged 519,968 votes (45.5 per cent), and the Congress’s Namdeo Dalluji Usendi polled 442,442 votes (38.72 per cent), VBA’s Rameshkumar Baburaoji Gajbe managed to get an impressive 111,468 votes (9.75 per cent).
The results were similar in a few other seats, where VBA may have spoilt the chances of candidates belonging to the Congress-NCP alliance.
In the 2014 assembly polls, the AIMIM, led by Hyderabad Member of Parliament Asaduddin Owaisi, contested 25 seats. However, he won only two and secured about 500,000 votes. This time it is expected to do much better and might contest more seats, the AIMIM leader said.
“The vote share among Dalits, STs and Muslims is about 35% of Maharashtra’s population,” the AIMIM official added.
