In its first Gujarat contest, AIMIM identifies 40 seats, says focus Dalit, Muslim votes

In the local body elections held in February 2021, considered the bellwether for the coming Assembly polls, the AIMIM had won in 26 of the 40 seats it contested, including nine in Modasa, six in Godhra, one in Bharuch, and seven in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.

Already pushed into a corner by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Congress fears losing the Muslim vote to the AIMIM, and has lashed out with the familiar accusation of the party being “the BJP’s B-team”, looking to divide the Opposition’s vote share. Most of the seats the AIMIM is focusing on fall in Congress strongholds.

AIMIM Gujarat chief Sabir Kabliwala, a former Congress MLA, dismisses this, saying if any party is splitting the Opposition vote in the state, it is AAP. Calling AAP “chhota charger”, Kabuliwala says: “AAP has no party-level organisation in the state and neither is it fielding any contestant who can win in the election. They got a few seats in the Surat Municipal Corporation (last year) only because there was dissatisfaction with the BJP among the public.”

Kabliwala also says that the AIMIM would not tie up with any other party and that its focus is “mainly on Dalit candidature”. Pointing out that it had fielded a Dalit candidate from a general seat in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation elections, he says: “We want to protect the Constitution and be a clear voice of Opposition in the Assembly. We shall be raising issues of Muslims as well as Dalits, and increase their representation in the Assembly by fielding Dalit candidates from four general category seats as well (apart from reserved).”

Speaking to the media in May, Owaisi had said the party would be taking up the issues of “development and unemployment among youths”, as well as try “to raise an independent political leadership among the Dalits and minority community”.

Attacking the Congress and BJP, the AIMIM Gujarat chief said: “They speak in the same voice and no good has come of it. Neither do they raise the issues of the marginalised. That apart, we also want to take other communities — Thakors, Darbars, Patels – along.”

While the AIMIM lacks good recognisable leaders, and there is little sign of sustained campaigning by it on the ground, Kabliwala defends: “We will convince people that they should vote for us because the Congress and BJP have not done anything for their welfare till date. We want to break away the votes of Dalits and Muslims which go to the Congress. We will ask them what they have gained from voting for the Congress for so many years.”

Of the seats where the AIMIM plans to field candidates, five are in Ahmedabad district. Ahmedabad has a total of 21 Assembly consittuencies. It has already announced candidates for three of the seats – while Kabliwala will contest from Jamalpur-Khadia; Kaushika Parmar is the AIMIM candidate from the Danilimda SC reserved seat; and Shahnawazkhan Pathan from Bapunagar. All three seats have Congress incumbents.

Sitting Jamalpur-Khadia MLA Imran Khedawala questioned the AIMIM’s motives in an interview to The Indian Express earlier this month. “My seat has a 60:40 Muslim-Hindu ratio, but I cannot win if I don’t get Hindu community votes. Kabliwala will not win, but will directly benefit the BJP. I have a considerable lead, so it won’t affect me much, but certainly it will damage me somewhere.”

Shamshad Pathan, who was formerly the vice-president of the AIMIM in Gujarat and its Ahmedabad city head, before exiting the party in April this year, calls such allegations of “vote-cutting” a facile excuse.

“In a democracy, multiple parties contest, and you can see such examples in Delhi, West Bengal, Bihar etc. It cannot be that the Congress does no work throughout the five-year tenure, and at the last moment, before the Assembly elections, complains about its vote share getting cut. Had it worked, this would not happen,” Pathan adds.

A practising advocate and a social activist, Pathan adds that in contrast, the BJP has “panna pramukhs (for every page of the voter list)”. “That is the level of ground reach they have. What stops other parties from ensuring that kind of ground presence?”

In Surat’s Limbayat seat, the AIMIM candidate is Abdul Bashir Shaikh, a 33-year-old resident of the area who originally belongs to Jalgaon in Maharashtra and is employed in Surat’s textile industry. The party appears to be gambling on the fact that apart from a substantial Muslim population, the seat has a large proportion comprising migrants hailing from Maharashtra, followed by Telangana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha.

The Limbayat seat is currently held by the BJP’s Sangeeta Patil, who is considered a close aide of the party’s Gujarat chief, C R Paatil. Limbayat is part of Paatil’s parliamentary constituency.

Abdul Bashir Shaikh, who was previously in the NCP, joined the AIMIM in 2019 and is fighting his first election, admits he faces a “tough” contest. But, he adds, apart from the Muslim voters, he is banking on the vast group of Hindus who support him due to his “social work”. “We will carry out door-to-door campaigns and work hard.”

From Surat North, the AIMIM has announced Wasim Qureshi, its former Surat city president, as the candidate. This seat too has a BJP incumbent.

The AIMIM also plans to announce candidates for Dariyapur and Vejalpur in Ahmedabad, currently held by the Congress and BJP respectively.

Apart from Ahmedabad and Surat, the AIMIM is eyeing the Vadgam seat in Banaskantha district. This constituency is currently held by Independent MLA-turned-Congress leader Jignesh Mevani.

The party’s other candidates are likely to include five in Kutch (three from reserved seats). Of these, two are held by the BJP and one by a Congress MLA. Giving the break-up of Dalit and Muslim voters in these seats, Kabliwala says they together make up around 1 lakh in each.

In Saurashtra, the party plans to field candidates in Mangrol in Junagadh (ST reserved seat, held by the BJP) and Somnath (Congress incumbent), apart from fighting Anand (right now with the Congress) and Godhra (it has a BJP MLA).

The AIMIM campaign, however, has been plagued by exits. Between April and July, several resigned accusing Kabliwala of taking unilateral decisions, as well as expressing apprehension that its plans would “benefit the BJP” in the Assembly polls. Around 4,000 members of the party, mostly ground-level workers but 68 primary workers, quit in this period.

Shamshad Pathan says that while allegations of the AIMIM helping the BJP might have no truth, “the fact is, they have no ground presence… I suspect that some may even lose their deposits in this election”. He also questions the failure of the party to clearly raise points or issues that it wants to address. “What will the voters vote for?”

Meanwhile, there is silent campaigning on in Surat, through the social media, to convince people to not vote for AIMIM candidates. Secret group meetings are being held among Muslim pockets by community leaders.

Admitting this, Muslim community leader and social worker Salim Ghadiyali says: “They are merely a party which divides the Muslim vote. In Surat, Muslims are in large numbers in the Surat North and Limbayat seats, and it is here that the AIMIM has fielded candidates. They did the same thing in UP, fielding candidates in 100 seats where Muslims dominated.”

In UP, the AIMIM formed a “third front”, called the Bhagidari Parivartan Morcha, with the Jan Adhikar Party led by former UP minister Babu Singh Kushwaha and the Bharat Mukti Morcha headed by Waman Meshram. The AIMIM contested 100 seats, but could not win any and got only 0.49% of the total votes polled in the state.