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AIMIM setting up election machinery in Bengal; BJP, TMC play down threat
AIMIM won five seats in recently held Bihar polls and is hoping to have a telling impact on West Bengal elections too.
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) will soon set up its election machinery in West Bengal ahead of the crucial 2021 assembly polls, party leaders said after a meeting with party head Asaduddin Owaisi in Hyderabad on Saturday, party leaders said.
AIMIM, after winning five seats in recently held Bihar polls, had announced that it would contest the West Bengal assembly elections.
A delegation of West Bengal unit of AIMIM, comprising leaders from all 23 districts, held a meeting with Owaisi in Hyderabad, where discussions to prepare the party’s poll strategy for the upcoming polls were held.
“Owaisi is expected to come to West Bengal very soon. We would be contesting the elections in West Bengal. The state election committee would be formed soon. Owaisi is expected to announce the election committee and numbers of seats we would contest, during his visit,” said Asim Waqar, AIMIM spokesperson and the party’s Bengal coordinator.
Muslims accounted for West Bengal’s 27.01% population as per the 2011 census and the community plays a decisive role in 120 out of 294 assembly seats in the state, according to surveys by the BJP and election strategist Prashant Kishor’s I-Pac.
Even though Owaisi’s critics say AIMIM will end up splitting the votes and thus help the BJP, which is eyeing for around 200 out of the 294 seats in the state assembly, both the TMC and the BJP, however, said that the AIMIM won’t be a factor.
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“Owaisi belongs to Hyderabad. He has some influence in some of the bordering districts in Bihar as there are some Urdu-speaking people. He is an assistant of the BJP and is used to split the non-BJP votes. It also happened in Bihar. We are not concerned with Owaisi. Many people from AIMIM are joining the TMC because he has been unmasked,” said Saugata Roy, TMC MP.
AIMIM will not be able to make any difference in Bengal. Here the fight is between the TMC and the BJP. People want to get rid of the TMC and BJP will come to power,” said Samik Bhattacharya, spokesperson of the BJP’s state unit.
