Owaisi in Bihar: Muslims don’t buy his religious pitch

BJP bit electoral dust and Owaisi’s AIMIM sank without a trace in the six seats that it contested – a far cry from the 24 seats in the four Seemanchal districts of Purnea, Katihar, Kishanganj and Araria – it had originally been speculated to contest. Party chief Akhtarul Iman who contested from Kochadaman – a seat where even the BJP had on the record given AIMIM a fair chance – was the only one from the party who came in second place but the margin of 16,745 (till the time this is uploaded) is not going to be something that he or his party president would want to be talking about.

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Iman had famously withdrawn from the poll fray in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, saying he didn’t want to cause a division of Muslim votes, asking voters to vote for the Congress candidate Asrarul Haque in the Kishanganj LS seat. That his party had for the large part of the run up to the Bihar elections been accused of being in the fray at the behest of BJP – Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that Owaisi fielding candidates would benefit the BJP – is something that nobody will remember now because the party is barely a blip on the Bihar poll radar.

As per the religion based data of Census 2011, this is how the Muslim population in Seemanchal stacks up: Araria has 42.95% Muslims, Purnea has 38.46%, Katihar has 44.47% and Kishanganj, the only district in the area which shares an international boundary, 67.98% Muslims. The 24 Assembly seats that the four districts together account for include Katihar, Barari, Pranpur, Manihari, Kishanganj, Bahadurganj, Kochadhaman, Araria, Forbesganj, Raniganj, Purnea and Kasba.

The Bihar drubbing – if the performance in six seats can be called that – will be a serious impediment to Owaisi’s stated ambition of spearheading a party for Indian Muslims. Whether his potential as a divider of the secular votes – as alleged by his detractors – did indeed play a decisive role is an analysis that will have to await the final results but it is already clear that Bihar’s Muslims did not buy his religion pitch they did in Maharashtra.