Mumbai: In the upcoming Maharashtra elections, Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is contesting its lowest-ever number of seats with hopes of improving its strike rate and emerging as kingmaker in what is likely to be an intense battle with six major parties and several new political alignments in the fray.

The Hyderabad MP’s party is contesting 16 seats this time, down from 44 in 2019, it announced last week.

The ruling Mahayuti comprises the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

In 2022, the Shiv Sena underwent a vertical split when Shinde walked out with a majority of MLAs and allied with the BJP to form government, claiming to be the ‘real Shiv Sena’. In 2023, Ajit Pawar did the same with NCP.

“Tomorrow, if a situation arises that a government has to be formed, then MIM can emerge as the kingmaker. Everyone knows who we will support. I have anyway clearly said we don’t want the ruling alliance to come to power,” Jaleel said.

A party leader who did not wish to be named said the AIMIM office bearers had a meeting with Owaisi earlier this month where they took stock of their assembly performance in Maharashtra and, instead of vote share, decided to focus on the strike rate—the share of contested seats a party wins.

The leaders discussed how the party’s primary objective is to dislodge the ruling Mahayuti dispensation and a better strike rate could help it emerge as a credible player that can shore up numbers on the other side.

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Kingmaker dreams

In the run-up to the elections, the AIMIM said it was very keen on joining the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance of Congress, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar).

The AIMIM had written to MVA leaders saying it was open to talks to join the alliance, but it did not receive a response. “Last two months, I was after them to include MIM in their alliance. After elections, maybe a situation will arise where they will stand in front of my door,” Jaleel told reporters.

In 2022, too, when the MVA was in power in Maharashtra, the AIMIM had reached out to ruling party leaders, saying it could join the alliance and take it from a “three-wheeler auto rickshaw”—implying a shaky alliance of three parties—to a “comfortable car”.

The undivided Shiv Sena under Uddhav Thackeray, the senior-most party in the alliance, rejected the suggestion saying the party can never ally with someone who bowed down before Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.

According to 2019 election data, despite contesting only 16 seats this time, the AIMIM still has the potential to damage the MVA’s prospects in a few constituencies.

In five—Aurangabad Central, Mumbra Kalwa, Solapur, Nanded South, Mankhurd Shivajinagar and Nagpur North—of the 16 seats, the sitting MLAs are from the MVA.

The Dhule and Malegaon Central seats are currently held by AIMIM. Malegaon Central AIMIM MLA Mohammed Ismail Abdul Khalique defeated the Congress candidate in 2019 with a massive margin of 38,519 votes.

The data further showed that eight of the 16 seats, where Mayayuti MLAs are incumbents, AIMIM severely hurt the Congress in 2019 on at least two and the undivided NCP on one seat. For instance, in Bhiwandi West, which the BJP won with 58,857 votes, the AIMIM was in the second position with 43,945 votes, pushing Congress to the third position with 28,359 votes.

Similarly, in Byculla, where a candidate from the undivided Shiv Sena won, the AIMIM was in second position with 31,157 votes, while the Congress received only 24,139 votes. The combined votes of AIMIM and Congress in Byculla was higher than the 51,180 votes received by the winning candidate, Yamini Jadhav. After the Shiv Sena split, Jadhav aligned herself with the Shinde-led Shiv Sena.

In Kurla, where the undivided Shiv Sena won, the AIMIM and the undivided NCP votes together were just short of the winning candidate. Here, Mangesh Kudalkar, who aligned himself with the Shinde-led Shiv Sena received 55,049 votes, while AIMIM and the undivided NCP got 17,349 and 34,036 votes the total is 51,385 votes, respectively.

Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe told ThePrint that the MVA didn’t get any clear offer from the AIMIM. “We never got any clear proposal from them, neither orally nor in writing. Alliance talks cannot happen through the media. They have to be done in person. Since nothing of that sort happened, there’s no point in talking about the party’s role post elections now,” he said.

Londhe also said that the voters of Maharashtra have realised now that a division of votes against the ruling dispensation helps the BJP.

“We saw voters avoid division of votes in the Lok Sabha elections for this very reason and we are confident that it will be the same in the assembly polls,” Londhe added.

In the Lok Sabha elections this year, the MVA won 30 of the 48 seats while the Mahayuti saw a lackluster result, winning only 17 seats. One seat went to an Independent—a Congress rebel who aligned himself with the MVA.

AIMIM in Maharashtra

Owaisi’s AIMIM made its first splash in Maharashtra in 2012 when it won 11 of the 81 seats in the Nanded civic body, a Congress bastion. In the 2014 assembly elections, the AIMIM contested 24 seats and won two, beating the expectations of most political watchers, though it had to forfeit its deposit for 14 seats—where won less than one-sixth of the total votes. The party’s Waris Pathan clinched Byculla while journalist-turned politician Jaleel won Aurangabad Central.

Pathan is now contesting from Bhiwandi West, while Jaleel is the party’s candidate for Aurangabad Central again.

In the 2019 assembly polls, the AIMIM contested 44 seats alone, winning only Dhule and Malegaon central. Not only did it fail to retain the Byculla and Aurangabad Central seats, it had to forfeit its deposit for 35 other seats. Still, at least four of its candidates ended in the second position and 11 were in the third.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the AIMIM contested in an alliance with Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, winning one seat. Jaleel became the first Muslim MLA in 39 years to represent the Aurangabad constituency, which is now known as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.

In the Lok Sabha elections in June this year, however, the AIMIM’s sole MP lost by 1.34 lakh votes. Jaleel ran a campaign to appeal to all castes and religions, not just Muslim voters. In his conversation with reporters Wednesday, Jaleel also said that there is no consolidation of Muslim votes and all anti-BJP parties were getting the community’s votes.

(Edited by Sanya Mathur)

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