LUCKNOW: When firebrand Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) joined hands with Chandrashekhar Azad-led Azad Samaj Party – KanshI Ram (ASP – KR) to contest all 403 UP assembly seats in 2027 polls, the announcement created ripples but failed to trigger any fireworks in the political circles like it did when it entered the Bihar poll fray or the recently concluded West Bengal assembly elections.One reason for this meek entry was that Telangana-headquartered AIMIM has been trying its luck in UP state polls since 2017 UP assembly elections, but has failed to send a single MLA to the state’s Vidhan Sabha in a decade.This has been in sharp contrast to its impactful electoral journey in Bihar and of late even in Maharashtra and West Bengal.
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Political experts are of the view that more than AIMIM’s political rivals, it is the Muslim community in UP – the core voter base that Owaisi’s party focuses on – which does not see the party as a potential political challenger to national parties like the BJP or the more regionally focused outfits like the Samajwadi Party or the Bahujan Samaj Party for that matter.Lack of organisational machinery and absence of foot soldiers on ground have only compounded Owaisi’s challenges.This apart, another major challenge for the AIMIM in UP is that its political rivals have somewhat successfully managed to label Owaisi as the B team of BJP – a perception that has gained significant ground among Muslims.As a result, while the AIMIM-backed candidates have emerged victorious in local body polls where candidates’ personal relations at the hyper local level matter more than his political affiliations, the party has failed miserably to bag enough votes to put the party candidate in a fighting position.In 2025 Bihar polls, AIMIM contested 29 seats and retained the five that it had won in the Muslim dominated Seemanchal belt in 2020. In 2026 Maharashtra civic polls, Owaisi’s party bagged 114 seats, including 33 in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.In UP, AIMIM started making its presence felt in the run-up to the 2017 assembly polls. The party came under the political spotlight in early 2016 after the then SP govt led by Akhilesh Yadav did not permit Owaisi to address rallies in Azamgarh – a stronghold of SP.Later, Owaisi claimed that he was stopped from visiting the state 12 times and permission to do his rallies were cancelled 28 times in the 12 months before the 2017 polls.The party, however, went on to contest 38 seats in the Assembly polls securing 2,04,142 votes (0.24% of the vote share) without winning a seat.In the 2022 assembly polls, AIMIM contested 96 seats to bag 0.43% vote share. A major political upheaval erupted when it was alleged that AIMIM candidates on many seats secured votes more than BJP’s victory margin.Social media posts then claimed that this happened on 165 seats and Owaisi himself came out in the media to claim that post was unfounded as the party had contested only 96 seats.The 2023 urban bodies elections in UP, however, came as a shot in the arm for the AIMIM with the party’s five chairpersons in the Nagar Palika Parishad and 75 councillors in the municipal corporation making it through.This was a massive increase of 126% in seats from 32 in the previous local body polls. AIMIM’s mayoral nominee in Meerut grabbed the second position, next to BJP.
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