In a move that could spell trouble for the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehedual Musal-meen (AIMIM) has announced that it will put up candidates in all 403 Ass
In a move that could spell trouble for the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehedual Musal-meen (AIMIM) has announced that it will put up candidates in all 403 Assembly seats in the 2017 elections.
According to Mr Shaukat Ali, state president of AIMIM, the party has started the process of identifying the candidates and is focusing on constituencies that have a sizeable Muslim and dalit population.
The AIMIM will be contesting the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh on the slogan “Jai Bhim, Jai MIM” and is working on forging a dalit-Muslim combination.
The AIMIM may not win many seats for itself but it will definitely damage the vote base of SP and BSP.
The Muslim-dalit combination has yielded encouraging results for the AIMIM in the byelections in the Bikapur Assembly seat in Faizabad in February this year. The AIMIM had put up a dalit candidate Pradeep Kori who ended up at the fourth position — just 100 votes behind the BJP.
If the AIMIM attempts to consolidate its formula in Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party is bound to suffer a depletion in its Muslim vote base a while the Bahujan Samaj Party will also lose some of its dalit votes too.
According to AIMIM state president, a large number of youth from Muslim, dalit and OBC communities are keen to contest on the party ticket in UP.
“We are meeting the candidates who are seeking party tickets and soon we will submit our report to the party president Asaduddin Owaisi and the national leadership will take the final decision on the candidates,” said Mr Shaukat Ali.
Mr Ali said the AIMIM’s main fight would be against the BSP and the SP.
“We will expose both these parties because they have played havoc with the interests of minorities and the downtrodden sections of society. Muslims have been targeted during the Muzaffarnagar riots and the government is not concerned about their safety and security,” he said.
Mr Ali said the party was planning to hold a massive rally in UP after Ramzan in which Mr Owaisi is expected to announce the AIMIM’s roadmap for the 2017 elections.
According to AIMIM state president, the party has now got an active membership of over 10 lakhs. He said that majority of the districts now have our party units and the workers are striving to strengthen our vote base.
Incidentally, , the AIMIM has already opened its electoral account in the state last year by winning four zila panchayat seats—one each in Azamgarh and Muzaffarnagar and two in Balrampur where two of its four candidates were Hindus. The party had, in fact, fielded a significant per cent of non-Muslim candidates, mainly Dalits and backwards, in the panchayat polls.
