Mumbai: When Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen entered the electoral fray this assembly poll, it had dreams of being kingmaker. Its leader Imtiaz Jaleel had claimed that after the results, Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders would be lining up in front of his door, seeking his party’s support to form the government.
The ruling Mahayuti’s landslide victory dealt a crushing blow to the AIMIM’s dreams. The party, which contested only 16 seats now as compared with 44 in 2019, saw its tally reduced to one MLA from two. Its vote share in Maharashtra also underwent a squeeze to 0.85 percent now from 1.34 percent in 2019.
The one seat the AIMIM got was the Muslim-dominated seat of Malegaon Central, which it had won in the 2019 assembly elections, too. This time, it won with a thin margin of 162 votes against an outfit that calls itself Indian Secular Largest Assembly of Maharashtra. The Congress was relegated to the fourth position after the Samajwadi Party.
Moreover, the AIMIM, which contested in 16 of Maharashtra’s 288 assembly constituencies, came second in five. In two of these seats—Aurangabad East and Aurangabad Central—the votes polled by the second-placed AIMIM candidate and the third-placed MVA candidate, when added together, exceeded those of the winning Mahayuti candidate.
In Aurangabad East, the AIMIM’s former MP Imtiaz Jaleel polled 91,113 votes, while the Congress’s Lahu Shewale polled 12,568 votes. The victor, the BJP’s Atul Save, received a total of 93,274 votes.
Similarly, in Aurangabad Central, the AIMIM’s Naseruddin Siddiqui polled 77,340 votes, while Dr Balasaheb Thorat of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) polled 37,098 votes. Pradeep Jaiswal, the victorious candidate from the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, got a total of 85,459 votes.
In a post on social media platform X Saturday, Owaisi congratulated his party’s only MLA from Maharashtra, Mufti Ismail, and urged his party workers to “not lose heart and work with renewed resolve”.
“If anything, the election results show that the people are looking for a genuine political alternative and that Majlis has established itself in Maharashtra’s politics,” Owaisi wrote.
Congratulations to Mufti Ismail sahab on being elected as Malegaon MLA for a second time. I am thankful to the people of Maharashtra who voted for us in large numbers. To our candidates, party workers and supporters, I urge you all to not lose heart and work with renewed resolve.…
— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) November 23, 2024
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 it won less than one-sixth of the total votes. The party’s Waris Pathan clinched Byculla while journalist-turned politician Jaleel won Aurangabad Central.
This time, Jaleel came second in Aurangabad East, while Pathan contested in Bhiwandi West and was only able to secure fifth place, winning 15,800 votes.
In the 2019 assembly polls, the AIMIM contested 44 seats alone, winning only Dhule City 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 finished in second place and 11 came 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 was no consolidation of Muslim votes and all anti-BJP parties were getting the community’s votes.
(Edited by Rohan Manoj)
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