Gujarat Watch: AIMIM, The Elephant In The Congress Room

Congress has dismissed AAP as BJP’s B-team, though the latter is giving sleepless nights to BJP too, but its predicament is the double whammy that spawns from another alleged B-team — Owaisi’s AIMIM.

Ahmedabad: Many journalists and political analysts worth their salt in Gujarat wonder how the various pre-poll surveys predict a victory for the BJP bigger than Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal best of 127 out of 182 at the peak of the 2002 Hindutva wave. But with the parties having announced almost all candidates for the first phase of polling on December 1, the surveys may have a message in them.   

The surprise or the disbelief over the pollsters’ claims largely stems from the palpable lacklustre performance of all the BJP chief ministers post-Modi 2014, and there is very little to talk home about the party’s previous two governments of Vijay Rupani or that of the present one-year-old chief minister, Bhupendra Patel.

If anyone, it is only PM Modi who will do the trick for the BJP. But this was so even in the 2017 elections when the ruling party came perilously close to defeat in its safest bastion.

However, five years down the line, it is also known that the BJP stands on a stronger footing than 2017, given that it has managed to bring as many as 23 Congress MLAs to its fold in the last five years.

Simultaneously, the BJP has also neutralised Patidar agitation spearhead Hardik Patel, who is contesting the elections from Viramgam, and OBC leader Alpesh Thakor, who has been fielded as the BJP candidate from Gandhinagar North seat.   

That apparently may have restricted the damage to a certain extent, but the strong anti-incumbency and fatigue with the state government has raised a huge question on the BJP’s ambition to break the yet unbroken 1985 Congress record of 149 out of 182 seats.

The Real Story Begins Here  

Despite losing its several legislators, despite the central leadership having given Gujarat a pass so far, despite the party keeping a low-profile campaign, and despite its legendary internal bickerings, the Congress had been in a competitive situation to beard the lion in his own lair.

Faced with its toughest battle in 2002 under a huge Hindutva tsunami helmed personally by none other than the invincible Narendra Modi, the Congress still managed 51 seats and the party’s vote share has never fallen under 30%.

In fact, it went up to 77 seats in the 2017 elections when the Congress lost some 10 seats with a margin of less than 1,000 votes and as many others under 5,000. In its first election without Modi as the chief minister, the BJP fell to 99 seats.    

But, this is where the cookie seems to be crumbling for Gujarat’s main opposition party, Congress, with the entry of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on the horizon — almost in that order.

The Congress party has dismissed the AAP as the BJP’s B-team, though the Arvind Kejriwal juggernaut is giving sleepless nights to the BJP too. But the Congress party’s predicament is the double whammy that spawns from another alleged B-team, the AIMIM, which is queering the pitch.

AIMIM: Noise For Congress, Music For BJP?

This second so-called B-team appears to be throwing a spanner in the works of only the Congress, as it looks like Asaduddin Owaisi’s speeches in Gujarat have been music to the BJP’s ears.

Here is how.

The AIMIM has already announced seven candidates, and finalised three others, including in constituencies reserved for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as also general category seats with good Muslim and Dalit populations. And it is not a coincidence that this comes exactly when the Congress is returning to its time-tested electoral formula garnering the Kshatriya OBC, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim (KHAM) voters, who put together add up to about 75% of the electorate.

It is essentially because of KHAM that the Congress under former chief minister, the late Madhavsinh Solanki, made a still-unbroken record of 149 seats in a House of 182 in 1985. The party, under the same CM, had won 139 seats in the 1980 elections.    

Implementing its decision to field candidates even in non-Muslim-dominated seats, the AIMIM has fielded woman candidate Kaushika Parmar from Danilimda seat in Ahmedabad city that is reserved for the Scheduled Caste and considered a sure-shot Congress pocket borough with Shailesh Parmar winning two terms from here. This constituency has a majority mix of Dalits and Muslims.

Similarly, the party has fielded Shahnawaz Khan from labour-dominated Bapunagar in Ahmedabad, which is a general seat represented by Himmatsinh Patel of the Congress and has mixed neighbourhoods of Patels, Dalits, Muslims and other Hindu communities.

In another seat, Mangrol in Saurashtra region’s Junagadh district that is represented by Congress MLA Babubhai Vaja, the AIMIM has nominated Suleman Patel. Again, Mangrol constituency has a good representation of Muslims and Dalits, besides OBCs and Patidars.

Owaisi’s party is fielding its Gujarat unit president Sabir Kabliwala from the Jamalpur-Khadia seat represented by Congress' Imran Khedawala. Kabliwala had won from here in 2007 on a Congress ticket and polled over 30,000 votes in the 2012 elections as an Independent when the seat went to the BJP. Khedawala won from here in 2017.  

What also lends weight to the BJP’s B-team allegation on Asaduddin Owaisi’s party is that it has fielded Muslim candidates in general seats represented by the BJP but where the Congress this time has nominated Muslim candidates in view of the community’s population.

For instance, if the Congress has fielded Aslam Cyclewala from Surat (East), which has been a BJP seat since 2002, AIMIM has nominated Wasim Qureshi. Similarly, the party has fielded a Muslim candidate in labour-dominated Limbayat in Surat and in Bhuj in Kutch district.  

Though his party is still struggling to zero in on a strong candidate there with less than 24 hours left to file nominations, Owaisi has already held at least four public meetings in Vadgam, the SC reserved constituency represented by firebrand Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani who also enjoys a good rapport with the Muslims.

Sources said there were strict instructions from the top BJP leadership to ensure the defeat of the promising youngster. “The AIMIM leaders are not happy but they may field a compromise candidate Pradip Parmar against Mevani in Vadgam,” a reliable source told me. The BJP has nominated Manibhai Vaghela, a Congress turncoat who had to leave the seat for Mevani in 2017.

The AIMIM is all set to challenge the Congress’ strong sitting MLA Gyasuddin Shaikh in Dariapur by nominating Hassan Lala, a senior municipal councillor from the area and former local Congress leader. Shaikh also has another thorn in the flesh in the form of Taj Qureshi contesting on an AAP ticket.  

What is more, Owaisi’s party is learnt to be finalising a candidate for the Danta Scheduled Tribe seat represented by Congress legislator Kantibhai Kharadi, who had won from here by nearly 25,000 votes.

While the AIMIM is ready with the list of these 10 seats, it has plans to contest in as many as 20 more constituencies. For the record, political parties claim there are as many as 25 seats where aggressive Muslim voting could tilt the scales on either side.

Ahmedabad-based advocate Shamshad Pathan, the number 2 in the party’s Gujarat hierarchy who quit the AIMIM because of a “trust deficit”, says the “Congress party has a good opportunity and it should come out and declare Muslim candidates in some seats. If they had successfully implemented KHAM in the 80’s, who is the party scared of?”   

‘What has Congress done for Muslims?’

BJP’s B-Team? AIMIM’s Gujarat spokesperson Danish Qureshi scoffs at this charge, asking: “What has the Congress done for the Muslims, not only in Gujarat but also across the country? Has the party which swears by secularism ever stood up for the community in its worst times? Haven’t we seen 2002 vis-à-vis the Congress?”

He adds: “Muslims represent 9.97% of the voters in Gujarat and should have at least 18 MLAs in the state assembly. With 11%, the Patels can have 47 MLAs.”  

Qureshi goes on: “They call us BJP’s B-team? The party that is responsible for the mess the minorities are in today, and we are their B-team? The BJP now speaks of Pasmanda Muslims, in one of its infamous jumlas; can the party get a quota for them?”   

Mujahid Nafees, who is the convenor of the apolitical body Minority Coordination Committee, points out that the Congress is in panic since it had “always taken the Muslim votes for granted but now there are other parties coming to them”. “Visiting someone once in a while to inquire about his or her welfare can often make a huge difference. Here, you don’t even get to see the Congress leaders!”

(The writer is a veteran journalist and Founder Editor, Development News Network [DNN], Gujarat)

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