Hyderabad: It looks like the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) will go solo in the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections. While state chief and ex-MP Aurangabad MP Imtiyaz Jaleel has been reportedly trying to seek alliances with the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), talks with the Prakash Ambedkar-led VBA have also failed. The AIMIM had won two seats in the 2019 polls.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election also the AIMIM had gone solo, given that it could not salvage its earlier alliance with the Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA). Maharashtra is likely to go to polls in November this year. It may be recalled that AIMIM won the Aurangabad Lok Sabha seat in 2019 with support from the VBA.
The AIMIM and VBA alliance however broke-off eventually, and Prakash Ambedkar also decided to contest elections on his own after. “Prakash Ambedkar or the MVA was not with us during the Lok Sabha election also. They will be used by the Congress or the Hindutva groups also, and have become a lightweight. He wants to put up 200 candidates, instead of putting up fewer but stronger candidates. Dalits are a divided community, wherein they have Buddhist and Hindu Dalits,” said an AIMIM leader.
The AIMIM leader told Siasat.com that Prakash Ambedkar is the leader for “Buddhist Dalits in Maharashtra, who are outnumbered by Hindu Dalits”. He added that Ambedkar and the VBA’s influence is limited, especially since it has not been able to win seats on its own.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the MVA, which includes the Shiv Sena (UBT), Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) and the Congress, managed to upstage the BJP and its allies by winning 13, 9 and 8 seats. The AIMIM also contested a few seats on its own but failed to win, including Aurangabad.
The BJP, Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) and NCP (Ajit Pawar faction), which are currently in power in Maharashtra, could win 9, 7 and 1 seats. The Shiv Sena was split by current Maharashtra deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde who joined hands with the BJP. Similarly, NCP leader Ajit Pawar also split the party (NCP is headed by founder and his uncle Sharad Pawar) and formed an alliance with the BJP.
The Maharashtra Assembly has 288 seats. In the 2019 state polls, the BJP won 105 seats and was the single largest party. The Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress won 56, 54 and 44 seats, while the AIMIM won two seats, apart from others. The Shiv Sena, which was in an alliance with the BJP broke it off due to internal issues and decided to form the MVA with Congress and NCP.
However, last year, Shinde and Ajit Pawar along with their MLAs split their parties and joined the BJP, which eventually managed to overthrow the MVA government. However, with the BJP and its allies performing poorly than the opposition in the Lok Sabha elections, it is to be seen how the MVA performs again.
Moreover, the AIMIM can at this point also join hands with the MVA, given that the Hyderabad-based party is currently also on good terms with the ruling Congress in Telangana. AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi shares a good rapport with Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy, and even helped the Congress in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. However, Shiv Sena (UBT) is likely to be okay with the AIMIM joining the fold.
