RJD urges Owaisi to refrain from fighting Bihar polls
RJD
leader
Tejashwi Prasad Yadav
on Friday publicly shared a letter written to his father and party chief Lalu Prasad by
AIMIM
's Bihar unit president, Akhtarul Iman, seeking public opinion on whether the opposition Mahagathbandhan should include Hyderabad MP
Asaduddin Owaisi
's party for the upcoming
Bihar assembly elections
.
In the letter dated July 2, Iman appealed to Lalu to include AIMIM in the opposition bloc, comprising RJD, Congress, Left parties and the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), to consolidate anti-BJP votes and avoid a damaging split. Owaisi himself has echoed this sentiment, stating that his party is repeatedly blamed for dividing secular votes during elections.
Tejashwi, who heads the coordination committee of the Mahagathbandhan, is already grappling with tense negotiations over seat-sharing with existing allies like Congress, the Left and Mukesh Sahani's VIP.
While AIMIM holds considerable influence in the Muslim-dominated Seemanchal region, having won five seats in the 2020 assembly polls, its inclusion could complicate matters further by reducing seat quotas for current allies.
In light of this, RJD MP and party's chief spokesperson Manoj Kumar Jha on Friday appealed to Owaisi to consider not contesting the Bihar elections, in order to protect secular unity. "Even the decision not to contest elections can be helpful," Jha told reporters in Patna.
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"Owaisi knows this, and so do his advisors. If your aim is to defeat the BJP and stop the politics of hatred, then refraining from contesting in Bihar would serve that very purpose," he said.
Notably, on June 30, Akhtarul Iman said that AIMIM was exploring the possibility of forming a third front after failing to receive a response from RJD and Congress. He also met with Akhil Bhartiya Paan Mahasangh president I.P. Gupta, who claims that the Tanti-Tantwa community, recently removed from the SC category, has a population of five crore nationwide.
Despite this, Iman made another attempt to join the opposition alliance by writing to Lalu.
In the 2020 Bihar assembly elections, AIMIM had allied with Mayawati's BSP, Upendra Kushwaha's RLSP and other smaller outfits to form the Grand Democratic Secular Front. The party contested 19 seats and won five, primarily from the Seemanchal region. However, Tejashwi later managed to induct four of AIMIM's MLAs into the RJD fold, reducing Owaisi's foothold in the state.
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