All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi has said the outcome of the 2016 Assembly elections points to the fact that it is not the splitting of the Muslim votes in the States that led to the Congress’s defeat, but the consolidation of the Hindu votes with others.
Speaking to The Hindu , Mr. Owaisi said the results could “empirically prove what I have been saying all along: the so-called secular parties have not been fighting a split in the Muslim vote, but a cutting away of other voters.”
“In Maharashtra, there are around one crore Muslim voters, and we put up candidates in 24 Assembly segments, including six non-Muslims and three Dalits. Polling was 60 per cent, therefore one can assume that around 60 lakh Muslims may have voted. We got 5.25 lakh votes. Therefore, the question arises as to where did the remaining 55 lakh votes go? Obviously they went to the other parties,” he said.
“In Kerala too, the Muslim League was in alliance with the Congress and won 18 out of the 20 seats where it contested. Tarun Gogoi in Assam recovered some of his seats from Lower Assam, from the Muslim-majority areas,” he said.
“Mr. Gogoi lost because the Ahoms, the tea tribes and others who had voted for him last time didn’t do so now.”
“In Bihar and Delhi, parties that came up with good strategies won,” he said. “Parties like mine and Badruddin Ajmal’s All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) are being blamed for nothing. The political narrative of these so-called secular parties — if they win it is because of a good strategy, if they lose it is because we split the Muslim vote — is not proved empirically. Whenever there is a contest between the BJP and the Congress, the former wins, rather than in contests with regional entities,” he said.
Questions MulayamMr. Owaisi puts Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party in the same category. “My question to Mulayam Singh Yadav is, why aren’t you allowing any public meeting by me in Uttar Pradesh? I have decided that every time there is a ban on my meeting, I will formally complain to the Election Commission of India for violation of my democratic rights,” he said. “
The Bajrang Dal can hold arms training and I cannot hold a public meeting? The intolerance shown by the so-called secular parties is worse than the right wing,” he said. He said his party would be “definitely contesting” the 2017 U.P. polls , but the scope for engagement was yet to be decided.
