Owaisi's AIMIM draws blank in Karnataka poll, fails to woo 13% Muslim population
AIMIM had contested two seats in the elections and lost both of them.
Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) drew a blank in the recent Karnataka assembly election – this is despite the fact that Muslim account for 13 per cent of the state's total population.
Although the AIMIM had made inroads into the state in 2021 with a few wins in the urban local body polls, the two candidates fielded in the Karnataka assembly election failed to make a mark.
Owaisi’s election campaign had focused on the controversies around the hijab ban, Tipu Sultan and the removal of 4 per cent reservation for Muslims by the incumbent BJP government. Owaisi had termed as "completely illegal" former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai government's decision to scrap the Muslim reservation.
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In the run-up to the elections, the AIMIM had announced that it will contest on 25 seats. However, it ended up fielding only Durgappa Kashappa Bijawad and Allahbaksh Bijapur from Hubballi-Dharwad East and Basavana Bagewadi, respectively. While Bijawad managed to poll 5,644 votes, Bijapur secured just 1,475 votes. In spite of conducting multiple public meetings and contesting only from the two seats it reportedly had a chance to win, the minority community seemed to have rallied behind the Congress in the 2023 election. Overall, the AIMIM garnered a mere 0.02 per cent of the vote share.
Rooting for JD (S) in 1028, the party had refrained from fielding candidates in the 2018 assembly polls and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka.
Accepting the Karnataka verdict, the Hyderabad MP told news agency PTI, “The people of Karnataka took a decision…We did not succeed there. But, the work on strengthening of Majlis (AIMIM) in states be it Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand and Bengal will continue. We won’t be discouraged (with the poll outcome).”
Read: "When Babri Masjid was demolished..," Owaisi hits out at Congress in Karnataka
On the Congress’s remarkable resurgence, Owaisi on Sunday said he hoped that the party will complete its poll promises, including revoking the scrapping of 4 per cent Muslim quota. While the Congress gave tickets to 15 Muslim candidates, nine of them emerged victorious.
Meanwhile, not one of the 23 Muslim candidates fielded by the Janata Dal (Secular), which enjoyed a strong backing from the community, could win in the 2023 polls as its seat share reduced to 19 from 37 in 2018.
Notably, the state is witnessing an assembly election for the first time since the hijab issue and the Centre’s five-year ban on the Islamist organisation Popular Front of India (PFI).
