No smooth sailing for Owaisi's MIM, faces choppy weather in two segments

Hyderabad, Nov 26: The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) has rarely faced a challenge to its political domination in the old city of Hyderabad, considered its pocket borough.

The party’s stronghold remained largely immune to the political changes elsewhere in the state. Be it in the united Andhra Pradesh or in the newly created Telangana, irrespective of who came to power, the MIM retained its traditional bastion.

This time, in the neck-and-neck battle between the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and the Congress, the MIM is siding with the former.

Though a resurgent Congress and a possible division of Muslim votes may make things difficult for the MIM in a couple of constituencies, it is difficult to predict if its tally of seven seats will come down this time.

The Asaduddin Owaisi-led party appears to be facing a tough battle in Nampally constituency. Mohammed Feroz Khan, who unsuccessfully contested every election since the constituency was created in 2009, had come closer to ending the virtual monopoly of MIM in 2018, losing to Jaffer Hussain by a margin of 9,675.

Khan is confident of a win this time and he is banking on the work he has done in the constituency to help people despite the defeats. After losing the 2009 and 2014 elections on the tickets of the Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) respectively, he contested as a Congress candidate in 2018.

This time, the MIM has replaced its sitting MLA Jaffer Hussain with the former mayor of Greater Hyderabad Majid Hussain as its candidate.

Supporters of MIM have been calling Khan an agent of the BJP and the RSS. Asaduddin Owaisi, who has been attacking state Congress chief A. Revanth Reddy for his alleged links with the RSS, has claimed that RSS people from Delhi are working for the Congress candidate in Nampally while the BJP candidate is sitting at home.

The MIM is also believed to be facing a tough contest in Malakpet, where the Congress has fielded Shaikh Akbar against sitting MLA Ahmed Bin Abdullah Balala. Some Muslim groups like the Tehreek Muslim Shabban have declared their support for the Congress.

The MIM has been winning Malakpet since the delimitation of constituencies in 2009. Balala won the seat thrice with a good margin and he remains confident of retaining it.

It was in 2009 that the MIM bagged Malakpet and Nampally to increase its tally to seven and since then it has retained all the seats.

Charminar, Chandrayangutta, Karwan, Yakutpura and Bahadurpura are the other seats held by the MIM.

In all these constituencies, Muslims account for 50 per cent or more of the total electorate.

Akbaruddin Owaisi, younger brother of MIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, has never lost an election from Chandrayangutta since 1999, when he defeated senior leader Amanullah Khan, who had challenged then MIM supremo Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi and floated a separate party, the Majlis Bachao Tehreek (MBT) in the early 1990s.

Amanullah Khan’s son Amjadullah Khan is once again contesting the election as the MBT candidate from Yakutpura, which along with Chandrayangutta were the two seats won by the MBT in 1994. The MIM’s tally then had dropped to one seat but in 1999 it regained its domination.

This time, the MIM has not fielded its two senior leaders Ahmed Pasha Quadri and Mumtaz Ahmed Khan.

In addition to the seven seats, the MIM is also contesting Jubilee Hills and Rajendranagar, which have sizable Muslim voters. Both the seats are currently held by the BRS.

The party has fielded its corporator Mohammed Rashed Farazuddin from Jubilee Hills, where former Indian cricket captain Mohammed Azharuddin is the Congress candidate. The Congress leaders have slammed the MIM leadership for fielding a Muslim candidate to help the BRS and defeat Azharuddin.

In 2014, the MIM had fielded V. Naveen Yadav from Jubilee Hills and he had lost to Maganti Gopinath of the TDP by 9,242 votes. In 2018, the MIM did not field its candidate from here, apparently to help its friendly party BRS.

The MIM has given the ticket to M. Swamy Yadav in Rajendranagar. The party has been contesting the seat since 2009. In 2014, its candidate Mirza Rahmat Baig Quadri had finished third with over 46,000 votes.

In the rest of the state, the MIM is supporting the BRS., drawing severe criticism from the Congress, which alleged that both the BRS and the MIM are hand in glove with the BJP.

The MIM had been an ally of the Congress in undivided Andhra Pradesh. Following the death of then chief minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy in 2009 and subsequent developments, the MIM parted ways with the Congress in 2011.

Though the MIM was not in favour of the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, it quickly adapted itself to the new political realities post 2014 and joined hands with the TRS (now BRS).

The secular image of Chief Minister KCR, his emphasis on preserving the ‘Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb’ (communal harmony) of Telangana and the schemes launched by the BRS government for minority welfare further cemented their ties.

While the MIM’s political opponents accuse the party of pursuing communal politics, KCR defended Asaduddin Owaisi saying he is fighting for the Constitutional rights of Muslims in a democratic manner.

The MIM was founded in 1927 to promote the socio-economic and educational development of Muslims. After ‘Operation Polo’ hastened the accession of Hyderabad State to the Indian Union in 1948, the MIM was banned.

However, in 1958 it was revived with a new constitution by Moulana Abdul Wahid Owaisi, grandfather of Asaduddin Owaisi. A well known lawyer in those days, Abdul Wahid Owaisi converted it into a political party to fight for the rights of the minorities as enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

From municipal wards in the old city of Hyderabad to two Lok Sabha seats in 2019, the MIM has come a long way in its six-decade-long journey in independent India.

More than three decades after first winning the Hyderabad seat, the party expanded itself in the true sense in 2019 by wresting Aurangabad seat in Maharashtra from the Shiv Sena.

The party now has 10 MLAs – seven in Telangana, two in Maharashtra and one in Bihar.