Owaisi now eyes Uttar Pradesh

New Delhi: With its electoral curve showing an upward trend in Maharashtra, AIMIM is now focusing on Uttar Pradesh in an apparent move to make inroads into the support base of Samajwadi Party and BSP.

"We are going to contest assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh," All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi said, adding that he was working to strengthen his party in the state at a time when the ruling Samajwadi Party has failed to fulfil promises to the people.
Elections in Uttar Pradesh are scheduled in early 2017. The Lok Sabha MP said "it was too early to say whether AIMIM would align with any other party in Uttar Pradesh". He said his party has not taken any decision on the issue of contesting Assembly polls in Bihar scheduled later this year and in West Bengal next year, both the states with sizeable Muslim voters.
Till BJP's emergence in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, politics in Uttar Pradesh has been dominated by the SP and the BSP for the past decade. Owaisi, who has courted controversy in the past with his inflammatory speeches, said he is not being allowed to enter Uttar Pradesh with the Samajwadi Party government cancelling all his rallies and public meetings at the eleventh hour by citing fears about law and order situation before courts. He said in Congress-ruled Karnataka too he is not being allowed to address rallies in Bengaluru despite AIMIM being a registered party in the state.
No state is a personal fiefdom of anyone. They wrongly use courts.... They start communal versus secular debate for denying me permission, said 45-year-old Owaisi, a third-term MP from Hyderabad, while criticising Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka governments. At the same time, he admitted that there were some criminal cases against him in his home state of Telangana.
Owaisi said that the paradox was that he could speak in the biggest panchayat (Parliament) of the country, but could not speak in some states Owaisi dismissed criticism by his detractors that he was helping BJP by contesting polls. AIMIM was not in the contest in the Lok Sabha polls either in Uttar Pradesh or Maharashtra which were swept by the BJP and its allies, he said. He asserted that his party is staunchly against the BJP. But now, he said, his party has to fight the SP government in Uttar Pradesh and the Congress in Karnataka. The failure of secular parties to protect the interests of minorities could be seen from the fact that there has not been a single Muslim Lok Sabha member from Maharashtra and Karnataka since 2009, he claimed.
AIMIM proclaims itself to be a political party dedicated to protect and advance the rights of Muslims, Dalits, backward classes, minorities and all other underprivileged communities. Owaisi said his party came out of the UPA in 2012 after being part of it for eight years, but he still has respect for Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. For several decades, AIMIM has been active in the twin cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad. In the just-concluded Aurangabad Municipal elections in Maharashtra, AIMIM sprang a surprise and won 25 of the 53 seats it contested and became the second largest party after the Shiv Sena (29 seats).
The BJP had to be content with 22 seats in the AMC which had a total strength of 113. AIMIM earlier won two seats in the Maharashtra assembly elections. In Aurangabad, of the 53 municipal wards it contested, it gave tickets to 13 non-Muslims  12 Dalits and one backward caste candidate. Of these, four Dalits and the backward caste candidates emerged victorious under the slogan of 'Jai Meem (Muslims); Jai Bheem (Ambedkar)'.