Gujarat: Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM now wants to eat into Congress' non-Muslim vote bank

Even as the Congress in Gujarat is trying to revive its time-tested KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) formula for the State Assembly elections, there is a new spoiler on the block this time. The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is planning to shed its pro-minority image and field candidates even in ‘non-Muslim dominated’ seats.

The AIMIM, which had already demonstrated its nuisance value for the Congress during the 2021 local body polls, has decided to field candidates in minority, Dalit and tribal-majority assembly districts.

The Congress might well wish to call the AIMIM a B-team of the ruling BJP, but Asaduddin Owaisi’s dispensation also has plans to run for seats in the Hindu-majority districts.

The AIMIM had successfully implemented this experiment when it fielded non-Muslim candidates during the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation elections last year. The party’s Dalit candidate Beenaben Parmar won in Jamalpur, which has a good Muslim population, and with this all their four panelists in that municipal ward won. The party plans to try this out in the assembly elections slated for December.

An AIMIM source claimed that his party would not look at the religion of the candidate irrespective of the caste and community dynamics in any constituency. The focus would be on winnability, he claimed.

During his public addresses in Gujarat, the AIMIM president often says that if Patidars have 44 MLAs with 15% population, the Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs who believe in unity between the Hindus and the Muslims could become a force to reckon with in the State.

With the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) striking an alliance with Aam Aadmi Party, Owaisi has been issuing appeals to every community with a low representation to vote for his party and has been travelling in such areas which have a mix of Adivasi, Dalit and Muslim voters.

A party leader said the Congress and the BJP had been fielding the Dalits and the Adivasis only in the constituencies reserved for them, the AIMIM would set a new trend and even nominate candidates from these communities from non-reserved seats.

According to this AIMIM leader, while the BJP never bothered to give tickets to the Muslims, the Congress would field Muslim candidates only where the community has more than 50% population. However, they would change the norm and could consider sending Dalits and OBCs in Muslim-dominated constituencies too.

”Essentially, we are working overtime to ensure that the Muslim tag doesn’t stick on the AIMIM since this was at times proving a burden and could be a stumbling block for the future,” a source said.

In the local body elections in the State in 2021, Owaisi’s party took 25 seats, including seven in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, and the rest in Modasa, Godhra and Bharuch local bodies.