MIM on pan-India rollout

Owaisi’s Bihar war cry, a worry for anti-BJP alliance

Hyderabad: Taking another step for a pan-India presence, the AIMIM on Saturday decided to contest the Bihar Assembly elections.Announcing this here on Saturday, Majlis president Asaduddin Owaisi said that his party would contest only from Bihar’s Seemanchal region comprising four districts and has 24 seats in the 243-member Assembly.

The party, which has its stronghold in Hyderabad and has one MP and seven members in the Telangana Assembly, had made an impressive debut in last year's Maharashtra elections by winning two seats out of the 26 it contested in the western state. Owaisi said the backwardness of Seemanchal would be the main poll plank of his party.

"We will demand a regional development board under the Article 371 of the Constitution for the overall development of Seemanchal," he said and blamed the Congress, BJP, RJD and JD-U for the region's backwardness. Last month, Owaisi had addressed a public meeting in Kishanganj district in the region.

He made it clear that AIMIM would contest the elections on its own. He, however, did not rule out post-poll alliances."We are realistic about our chances. We know our strengths and weaknesses," said Owaisi when asked why his party chose to contest in only one region. He said the AIMIM is not limited to Muslims.

It would represent Dalits and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) also. These sections make up 70 to 75 percent of Seemanchal's population. We are talking about development of Seemanchal which includes every section of society," he said.For the rest of Bihar, Owaisi appealed to the people to defeat communal forces.

"There are Communists and others. There are many options before the people," he said when asked if he was urging the people to vote for the grand alliance of the JDU, RJD and Congress. He termed as baseless the argument that AIMIM's presence will divide the secular votes. "You are not the only flag bearer of secularism. We are not coolies of secularism. We also have the capacity and credibility to take on communal forces," he said.

He urged his political opponents to stop blaming MIM for their weakness and inefficiency. AIMIM also plans to contest polls in West Bengal and at least 100 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh. For this, it has already set up organisational units in 25 districts, including Muzaffarnagar, Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Moradabad, Rampur, Gorakhpur, Maharajganj, Azamgarh and Kanpur.

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