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Journalism of Courage
Through his 35-minute speech, the crowd notes his every word and his presence as he stands hands outstretched in front of a stage crowded with a mix of people and flags. They also note that, at the rally rounding up the AIMIM campaign for the Aurangabad Lok Sabha seat, president Asaduddin Owaisi sparingly mentions his candidate, Imtiaz Jaleel.
After the BJP announced Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, who is an accused in the Malegaon blasts case, as its candidate from Bhopal, Owaisi speeches focused around her and the Modi government. He said the ticket to her exposed the BJP’s talk of security and terrorism as “a blatant lie”.
The fact that Jaleel forced Owaisi’s hand to give him a ticket is well-known. Whether Owaisi’s “half-hearted” campaign for him is reflective of the brothers Asaduddin and Akbaruddin’s (an MLA from Chandrayangutta in Hyderabad) reluctance to let any other leader emerge in the party is a matter of open conjecture, says a senior AIMIM leader.
Often accused of being a party that splits Muslim votes to hurt chances of secular fronts, the AIMIM is contesting for the Lok Sabha for the first time outside its bastion of Hyderabad. While Owaisi is seeking re-election for the fourth time from Hyderabad, the party has put up candidates in Kishanganj in Bihar and Aurangabad in Maharashtra. The AIMIM had won its first major poll contest outside Hyderabad in 2014, when it had won two Assembly seats in Maharashtra — Byculla and Aurangabad Central. Jaleel was its winning candidate from Aurangabad Central.
While Muslims make up 20-25 per cent of the voters in Aurangabad Lok Sabha seat, it has had a Muslim MP only once, with the Congress’s Qazi Saleem winning in 1980. Since then, with the Shiv Sena making the Aurangabad contest a choice about “Khan pahije ki baan (Do you want a Khan or the bow and arrow, its electoral symbol)”, parties have refrained from fielding a Muslim.
In Maharashtra this time, the AIMIM has tied up with Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar to float the Vanchit Bhaujan Aghadi.
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Earlier, Ambedkar had unilaterally announced that the JD(S), which is a part of the Aghadi, would be allotted Aurangabad Lok Sabha seat. Jaleel had put his foot down, and rumours went around that he might contest as an Independent.
With Owaisi conceding after prolonged negotiations, Jaleel is up against four-time sitting Shiv Sena MP Chandrakant Khaire and Congress candidate Subhash Zambad.
Denying he is a “reluctant campaigner”, Owaisi defended the delay in naming Jaleel. “One must consider several factors, take the opinion of people, think about finances….”
But not even supporters are entirely convinced. Said a young AIMIM activist, Javed Imran, “There is still sizeable support for the party in Aurangabad city, but the euphoria of the 2014 elections is missing.”
At one of his Aurangabad rallies, Owaisi held a minute’s silence for Hemant Karkare. Pragya Thakur had said the ATS chief, who was killed in the 26/11 attack, had died because she cursed him. She later retracted her statement. Speaking to The Indian Express, Owaisi said, “Karkare was an honest officer who did not differentiate between Hindus and Muslims… I wanted to stand in solidarity with him and people like him.”
He also regretted that the Congress was not raising the matter. “The Congress today is so scared its leaders do not even utter the word ‘Muslim’ at a rally… Congress leaders do not even want to defend Karkare.”
Owaisi added that he was surprised that there was no “censure” of Thakur for calling the elections a “dharmayuddh (religious battle)”. “Tomorrow if I somehow say that elections are akin to a word starting from ‘j’, I would be branded god knows what.”
But doesn’t the AIMIM too stand to gain from this shift towards majoritarian politics? “I don’t see myself as a representative of Muslims alone,” Owaisi said.
