Will Asad Owaisi Be The 'New Darling' Of UP Heartland?

The AIMIM president's growing popularity in UP will be keenly watched by both the BJP and the SP.

The growing popularity of Asaduddin Owaisi, president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul al-Muslimeen (AIMIM) is certainly changing political equations in Uttar Pradesh. The fact that Owaisi (who is also an MP from Hyderabad) has decided to begin the membership drive for his party from Gorakhpur, has raised eyebrows. This is because Gorakhpur is the place which has been sending BJP’s Yogi Adityanath to Parliament for the last five terms.

Adityanath may not have been there at the recruitment drive, but he — and the BJP — would most certainly have noticed the crowd that turned up for the AIMIM function. Over 2,000 people came to Gorakhpur’s SP Public School, and some believe the AIMIM will do a better job, than the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP), in countering the BJP.

Shaukat Ali, UP convener of AIMIM, present at the function, was reluctant to elaborate much on his party’s strategy but he had this to say: “Yogi (Adityanath) has prepared a background for a counter politico-religious ideology in UP. We can do this job effectively”.

The AIMIM is certainly planning to take the fight to the BJP.

They have planned to start a membership drive in Fatehpur, the constituency of Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti; Unnao, the constituency of Sakshi Maharaj, BJP MP; and Jaunpur, the political playground of Swami Chinmayanand, the former minister of state for internal affairs. These politicians, along with Yogi Adityanath, are seen as polarising figures.

But Owaisi is also in no mood to spare SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav. The AIMIM president said recently, “Mulayam has been at par with the hate-mongers of the BJP. While the saffron party leaders are playing hate politics to polarise the majority voters, he (Mulayam) leaves no stone unturned to polarise Muslim votes in his favour”.

Owaisi knows quite well that cutting Mulayam down to size is necessary to establish himself as a serious contender among the Muslim community in UP. As a result, Owaisi has also decided to target Azamgarh — the constituency of the SP chief. He has planned to adopt Sanjarpur, which had shot into the limelight when two youths of this village were shot dead by the crime branch in Delhi’s infamous Batla House encounter in 2008.

CommentOwaisi has some bold plans and few are rooting for him to succeed. As Tariq Shafique, a resident of Sanjarpur analyses, “By adopting Sanjarpur, he (Owaisi) can send a message across that he is a sympathiser of the Muslim community. This is how he can try to launch himself against the polarising elements within the BJP and also demolish Mulayam’s Yadav-Muslim combination in the state elections.”