UNDER SIEGE

ASADUDDIN OWAISI AND HIS AIMIM ARE FEELING THE PRESSURE IN THEIR HYDERABAD BASTION 

- AMARNATH K. MENON

Beginning in the 1950s, and especially over the past four decades, the Owaisis and their All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) have run an unchallenged political monopoly in Hyderabad. While not losing the Lok Sabha constituency even once since 1984, the party has also done well in the assembly. Even in the November-December 2023 state polls, it won seven seats, largely in the Muslim quarters of the Old City. One of these, Nampally, in fact, falls outside the LS constituency. But this thumbnail sketch, implying total area domination, also conceals a few truths.

The key nuance is that since 2014, the AIMIM vote share in its traditional stronghold has come down in the Telangana assembly election. In fact, in the latest iteration, the party came close to losing two of its sure seats-Nampally and Yakutpura-scraping through in the latter by 878 votes. This is not counting the Goshamahal assembly seat in Hyderabad, which the party has always lost. This is where the controversial Muslim-baiter, T. Raja Singh of the BJP, who has 105 criminal cases against him, has won thrice since 2014.

So, is the AIMIM losing ground? Opinion is divided among Muslims, and that at a time when firebrand party chief Asaduddin Owaisi has dreams of taking the party national. The countervailing fact? While the AIMIM vote share in the assembly is down, the AIMIM supremo has won the Hyderabad LS seat by polling more than 50 per cent of the votes in 2014 and 2019. Both times, his main rival was the influential Bhagavanth Rao of the BJP.