Asaduddin Owaisi led the party, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) seem to be winning 5 seats in the Bihar elections, if trends are to go by, with one already in its basket.
According to the latest updates received in the Bihar elections front, the AIMIM party is in the lead for 5seats, including Amour, Bahadurganj, Kochadhaman, and another two regions in the assembly.
If AIMIM secures the seats, it could prove to be a major success for the party as it will record the highest it ever has. The party stepped into the Bihar elections in its 2015 polls but couldn’t fetch even one of the six seats it had contested for. It again dived into the elections in 2019 and managed to secure a seat through the victory of QamrulHoda from the Kishangunjregion, as MLA Mohammed Javed was by then elected in the LokSabha.
AIMIM leads in Armour where Akhtarul Iman was contesting. The triangular contest has Iman leading with 1000 votes against Saba Zafar from JDU. The Congress party member, Abdul Jalil Mastan, had kept a strong grip on the seat of Amour since 1980. He successfully won a seat in the Amour Legislative Assembly in 2015.
Mohammed Anzar Naeemi is leading in Bahardurganj where another triangular contest exists. His closest rival is LakhanlalPandit who belongs to the VIP party, under the NDA’s umbrella. Both are being trailed by TausifAlam of Congress. He is dominating the region since 2005.
Leading in Kochadhaman is Mohammed Izhar Asfi of AIMIM who has MLA MujahidAlam as the major competitor. JDU has held the seat of Kochadhaman for the consecutive years of 2014 and 2015 in the by-elections.
Prior to the elections, journalists said that AIMIM couldn’t prove to be a gamechanger in Bihar even if it won all the seats it was contesting as GDSF, the flag it is under, has many other parties contesting for far more seats than just 20.
Although the party believed it could win ten seats or more, experts and observers saw a bleak chance of this happening and said they don’t expect AIMIM to win more than two or three seats, even in the “best-case scenario”. They said that even though the party witnesses a large crowd during its rallies, they do not necessarily comprise of only voters as many people come to listen to the speech of AsaduddinOwaisi as “he is a very good speaker and raises their issues in the parliament”.
However, after the exit polls trend was brought out, AIMIM’s general secretary of Bihar, Aftab Ahmed told TOI that they aren’t very confident of securing any seats in the elections. He said, “The AIMIM candidates are giving good fights in Kishanganj, Kochadhaman, Bahadurganj, Thakurganj, Amour, Baisi and Jokihat. There is a triangular fight in almost all seven seats. The NDA and the Mahagathbandhan also are in the contest. It is difficult to predict the outcome. Results can go either way.”
However, the trends show AIMIM leading in 5 seats, thrashing all other opinions sharing the unlikeliness of the party securing more seats.
The official data shows RJD currently in the lead 72 seats. The developments lean to the probability of AIMIM denting the chances of JDU and RJD of attaining Muslim votes as it has come into the limelight and gained their potential votes.
Congress MP AdhirRanjanChowdhury gave a tongue-in-cheek comment to the other parties in the contest and tweeted saying, “BJP’s tact of using (Asaduddin) OwaisiSahab’s party in the Bihar elections has succeeded to an extent. All secular parties should be alert about vote cutter Owaisi Sahab.”
