Bihar Election 2025: Will Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM join Opposition's INDIA bloc?
The Congress and the left parties are part of the Mahagathbandhan or the grand alliance, apart from the RJD led by Lalu Prasad Yadav. The AIMIM leaders in Bihar have been in touch with the RJD leaders, according to a report in The Indian Express.
The Mahagathbandhan in Bihar is part of INDIA bloc alliance – an amalgamation of opposition parties forged against BJP-led National Democratic Alliance ahead of 2024 general elections.
'We are interested in having an alliance with the Mahagathbandhan. We are very positive about forging it. Our ideology is to defeat the BJP and empower Bihar. Our fight with the BJP is the same as Congress's fight. We want the grand alliance to take AIMIM on board,' AIMIM national spokesperson Adil Hasan told The Indian Express.
The Hyderabad MP's party has so far maintained a distance from the Opposition INDIA bloc. In fact, the Mahagathbandhan parties used to call AIMIM as 'BJP's B team', alleging that it was playing the role of 'votekatwa (vote-cutter)' for the grand alliance. Owaisi has rejected these allegations as baseless.
In the 2020 assembly polls, when AIMIM was part of a 'third front with the BSP and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), it won five of the 20 seats it contested and bagged 14.28 per cent of the votes polled in the 20 seats. All five seats won by AIMIM were in the Muslim-dominated Seemanchal region in east Bihar. Two years later, four of these five AIMIM MLAs, however, defected to the RJD.
For now, AIMIM plans to contest over 50 Assembly seats out of 243 in the upcoming Bihar polls. However, the Indian Express report, quoting sources, said the party is flexible and will contest fewer seats if the RJD and the Congress agree to accommodate it.
'AIMIM has performed well in the past polls. And we have already supported the Opposition alliance on a number of occasions – in the Speaker's election and on Bills brought by the NDA government,' Hasan said.
There has not been any formal discussion of the AIMIM leaders with the RJD and Congress leaders for the alliance so far.
Besides the five seats which it had won in 2020, the party would like to contest from several seats across the regions of Mithilanchal, Champaran, Shahabad, Magadh and Bhagalpur, where it claims to have developed its organisation in the last five years.
We are interested in having an alliance with the Mahagathbandhan. Our ideology is to defeat the BJP and empower Bihar.
In his recent visit to Bihar, the AIMIM chief attacked the ruling BJP, the JD(U) and the RJD.
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Requesting anonymity, one of them says: 'Our husbands or sons live in Delhi or Punjab. My husband can't come back to fill the new form… Will they pay for the fare for the men to come for this?' In yet another Yadav settlement in Raghopur, Yogita Devi says she has heard of the EC revision from her sister-in-law, who is a BLO. But even she is yet to receive her form. Yogita agrees with the Opposition claim that this is the EC's 'sure shot way to cut votes of the poor'. She has another fear. 'Say my great-grandfather had some land, which got split into multiple portions by the time it reached my father and then me. If a person gives their family's land documents (one of the 11 allowed) as proof for the voter ID now, the government will say that they are well-off and stop their rations, even though they may not have enough land to live off it, and may be working as labourers,' Yogita says. Mahesh Kumar Thakur, a BLO in Raghopur, admits: 'There are some bastis where no one has any documents.' His supervisor who has eight booths under him, Sachidanand Singh, adds that the administration is working on issuing domicile certificates quickly. But, neither is sure they have enough time. EC directive As per the instructions issued by the EC on June 24, just four days before it rolled out the process on the ground, those who were on the electoral rolls in 2003 (when the last such Special Intensive Revision was done) can use the relevant extract from it as proof, while children of those on the 2003 rolls can use their parents' electoral roll extract. That means that all voters 40 and younger (who would not have been 18 in 2003) will have to provide additional documents. Only those who complete the formalities will be included in the draft electoral roll to be published on August 1, with just over a month to go for the Assembly polls. The 11 documents specified by the EC for those not figuring in the 2003 electoral rolls are: any identity card / pension payment order to an employee or pensioner of any PSU; any identity card / certificate / document issued by any government / local authorities / banks / post office / LIC / PSUs before July 1, 1987; birth certificate issued by a competent authority; passport; matriculation/educational certificate issued by recognised boards / universities; permanent residence certificate issued by competent state authority; forest right certificate; OBC / SC / ST or any caste certificate; national register of citizens (wherever it exists); family register; and land / house allotment certificate. RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari says the 'feedback' they have got is that 'the youth, poor, Dalit, who are voters of Tejashwi, will find it difficult to be in the list'. 'How can this exercise be done in 25 days, given that this is the season of monsoon floods, and people who live outside cannot return at such short notice?' The JD(U) has put its party leaders to work to help voters, and its chief spokesperson, Neeraj Kumar, says that is the course to take. 'Political parties must appoint booth level agents. None of the parties have them across all the booths. If we had appointed them, they would have worked with BLOs and helped the people… It is not good for democracy.' At the same time, Kumar admits that allegations have been raised by the Opposition. 'These have to be answered by the EC.' However, even within the ruling party ranks, there is disquiet. Raj Kishor, a JD(U) worker from Kalyan Bigha, says: 'This came as a surprise to us all. There should be revision of electoral rolls, but it can't be finished in such a short time… At least six months should have been set aside.'
