Parties outside the National Democratic Alliance and the Mahagathbandhan have been mostly pushed into near-irrelevance by Friday’s Assembly poll results in Bihar.
The Hyderabad-based All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), however, managed to retain all the five seats it had won the last time, in 2020, despite the defection of four of its outgoing MLAs to the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
The AIMIM won from Bahadurganj and Kochadhaman in Kishanganj district, Jokihat in Araria district, and Amour and Baisi in Purnea district — all in northeastern Bihar (Seemanchal), which has a high concentration of Muslims. The party’s state president, Akhtarul Iman, was re-elected from Amour.
The party came runner-up in Thakurganj, Kishanganj district, and was in second place also in Balrampur, Katihar, with the counting still to end. The NDA seemed headed to capture both these seats from the Mahagathbandhan. Late-evening trends showed the CPIML Liberation’s legislature party leader, Mahboob Alam, in third place in Balrampur.
In at least four seats — Pranpur, Araria, Kasba and Keoti — where it was set to finish third, the AIMIM’s votes were higher than the victory margin, meaning it may have influenced the outcomes.
The BJP, Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), Janata Dal United and the Congress won — or led from — one seat each among these four. The net loss was for the Mahagathbandhan, with the Congress poised to lose Kasba, Purnea district, to Chirag’s party.
The AIMIM increased its vote share from 1.24 per cent to 1.87 per cent. Its allies — the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party, headed by former Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras, and the Uttar Pradesh-based Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) and Apni Janata Party — drew a blank.
Long condemned as the BJP’s “B team”, the AIMIM rubbed salt into the Congress’s wounds by posting on X: “Congress has inflicted heavy losses on us by vote-splitting; otherwise, we were set to win 15+ seats.”
With the Congress’s tally likely to fall to 6 — it’s lowest since 2010 — the AIMIM has become the main representative of the Muslim community in Seemanchal, given its victories from seats where the community is in the majority. Party MP and leader Asaduddin Owaisi had led a Seemanchal Nyay Yatra in September.
The AIMIM’s inroads into what was considered the Mahagathbandhan’s vote bank were based mainly on two planks. One, the neglect of Seemanchal by successive governments; and two, the demand for adequate representation for Muslims, fielded in numbers disproportionately lower than their population by both the main alliances.
Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj came a cropper, drawing a blank in its debut election despite its publicity blitz in urban areas and on social media. The party’s vote share was not available on the Election Commission’s results website as it has neither won a seat, nor is it a recognised state or national party.
“One thing gives us satisfaction — that the Jan Suraaj agenda of employment, migration, education and corruption-free Bihar will now be part of every party’s agenda,” Jan Suraaj spokesperson and former MP Pavan Varma told PTI.