The Bihar unit of the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) announced on Wednesday that it would contest the upcoming Assembly election from several seats across the State.
It has released its first list of 32 seats across 22 districts it intends to contest from. The party said it would strike alliances with “like-minded” parties.
Assembly elections in Bihar are scheduled to take place in October-November this year.
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“In the first list we’ve identified 32 constituencies across 22 districts of the State. The Nitish Kumar government has failed on all fronts. It will be dangerous if Nitish Kumar returns to power,” AIMIM Bihar president Akhtarul Iman said in a video post to journalists. “We’ve been in consultation with several like-minded parties to build a strong alliance and will soon make an announcement,” he said. Political parties in Bihar, he said, were gearing up to contest the upcoming poll attacking the 15 years of RJD and NDA rule. “But we’ll also raise the 40 years of Congress party rule.”
The AIMIM, headed by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, had opened its electoral account in Bihar in the October 2019 by-election from the Muslim-dominated Kishanganj. Party candidate Qamrul Hoda had then defeated BJP candidate Sweety Singh by a margin of 10,211 votes. The by-poll was necessitated by the election of the sitting Congress MLA Javed Alam to the Lok Sabha in April that year.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha poll too, the AIMIM candidate in Kishanganj, State president of the party Akhtarul Imam, got a substantial number of votes in Bahadurganj and Kochadhaman assembly segments, but eventually lost to Javed Alam.
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The party president Asaduddin Owaisi has been a popular political figure in Muslim dominated Seemanchal (border) areas of northeast Bihar. In the 2015 assembly elections, the party had put up candidates in six seats, but drew a blank. This is the first time it has announced its intention to contest from assembly seats across the State in an alliance.