The Asaduddin Owaisi led majlis-e-Ittehadul Musalmeen (MIM) has come under fire from the local muslims of the Bikarpur assembly constituency for not fielding a muslim candidate despite the sizeable population of the minority community in the constituency. MIM has fielded a dalit youth from the Pasi community in Bikapur, where by election is held due to the death of the sitting Samajwadi Prty MlA Mitrense Yadav. Polling here will be held on February 13. Bikapur assembly constituency is in Ambedkar nagar district.
“It is not a matter of opposing Dalits or other non-Muslims. But, why field a Dalit candidate in a constituency with significant muslim population and the community lags behind in all sphere development and representation to assembly, parliament and other representative political institutions’’, said a local muslim religious leader Mohammed Rafique. He asked ``Owaisi claims to be the messiah of the muslims but what prevented him from a muslim candidate in a Hindu majority area and get him or her elected’’.
Echoing similar sentiments, Naushad Alam, a teacher, accused the MIM chief of playing communal card and disturbing the already polarized situation in the state for political mileage. “His decision to field a Dalit candidate for Bikapur assembly seat has no other reason than his self-interest to project him the messiah of Dalits, which certainly he is not”, Alam said.
“There are seats reserved for the backwards, and Muslims have for years voted for them in elections after the election. Owaisi talks of reservation and Muslim representation but fields a non-Muslim candidate in a Muslim area. This is ridiculous”, he said.
The state president of MIM Shakut Ali however dismissed the charge saying ``both dalits and the muslims constitute the core vote bank of the MIM so the party has chosen the candidate from the dalit community and the coming together of both the communities can bring a radical change in the politics of UP’’.
“The MIM is also focusing on its traditional voters the muslims. There are over One lakh muslim voters in Bikapur seat and around the same number of dalit voters. We know a tough task is ahead for us here to convince the muslim voters to vote for us as they had been traditionally voting the Samajwadi party for the last over two decades’’, said Shakut Ali.
Bikapur has been traditional stronghold of the ruling Samajwadi Party and the muslims of this constituency had been the loyal voter of the party. By election to this seat is being held due to the death of the Samajwadi Party MlA Mitresen Yadav. The SP has fielded his son Anandsen Yadav, who is the former minister in the Mayawati led bahujan Samaj party government in 2007.
To experiment with his plan of ‘Dalit-Muslim unity’ ahead of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Asaduddin Owaisi has fielded a Dalit as its candidate. Pradeep Kori, a Dalit youth, who has been fielded by MIM to contest the by-poll in Bikapur constituency is the state president of ‘Kori Society’, an influential group in the Dalit community.
Hyderabad based Asaduddin Owaisi is on expansion drive of MIM in other parts of country. The first election outside Hyderabad his party contested was in Nanded. The MIM here succeeded in denting the Congress vote bank and winning more than 10 seats in the local polls. The MIM later contested Maharashtra state elections and won two seats. The party then tried luck in Bihar but faced humiliating defeat.
