All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Mulsimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddiin Owaisi will launch its campaign for the U.P. Assembly polls on Friday with a public meeting in Kairana in Shamli. Kairana was in news last year due to the alleged “exodus” of residents due to deteriorating law and order situation there. Party ofifical Shadab Chauhan said that Mr. Owaisi would be addressing a meeting on Friday. The party has already released a list of 11 candidates for the first and second phases of the polls.
The list includes Masiullah, who is the party candidate from Kairana and in whose support Mr. Owaisi is expected to speak on Friday.
Mr. Chauhan said the party got permission from the local administration to organise the meeting. Mr. Owaisi did not get the administration’s permission to hold a rally during the Kairana exodus controversy.
This is not the first time the party will be contesting Assembly elections in U.P. It had fielded a Dalit youth leader, Pradeep Kori, in the Bikapur Assembly by-poll last year. Kori stood fourth with 11,857 votes, marginally less than the BJP candidate’s 11,933 votes, while the winner was Samajwadi Party’s Anand Sen who got 68,896 votes.
The Owaisi-led party announced a list of four candidates for the first phase of polls which will take place on 73 Assembly seats on March 11. The party has fielded Mohd Idris from Agra South, Ahtasham Ali from Firozabad City, Maulana Masiullah from Kairana and Parvez Ahmed from Koil in Aligarh. Among the seven candidates the AIMIM announced for the second phase on March 15 when elections would be held on 67 assembly seats, include Junaid Ayubi from Behat assembly seat in Saharanpur and Talat Khan in Saharanpur, Haji Shahabuddin from Moradabad City, Haji Aslam Ansari Moradabad Dehat (rural) and Israr Hussain will contest from Kundarki seat in Saharanpur district. Yaseen Ansari from Bareilly City, and Shamim Ahmed Turk in Amroha city are the party candidates for the second phase of polls.
Most of the Assembly segments for which the party has fielded candidates have substantial population of Muslim votes and could see division of minority votes. The party which failed to open its account in Bihar Assembly polls, had won four gram panchayat seats in the Uttar Pradesh panchayat polls last year. MIM candidates won one gram panchayat each in Muzaffarnagar and Azamgarh and two panchayats in Balrampur district of UP. Importantly both the Panchayat members with MIM affiliation who won in Muzaffarnagar and in Azamgarh Nitrapal Singh Bodh, Kailash Kumar Gautham belong to Scheduled Caste.
