Arrogance or ground realities? Why Tejashwi spurned Owaisi's alliance overtures

On Tuesday (October 7) evening, as he wrapped up his three-day tour of poll-bound Bihar with a rally in Gaya district’s Sherghati Assembly segment, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi had a question for the state’s nearly 18 per cent Muslim population.

Noting that the famous M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) combination of Lalu Prasad Yadav had given the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) 15 years in power in Bihar — from 1990 to 2005 — the Hyderabad MP asked, “What did you get in those 15 years?”

A day earlier, campaigning in Darbhanga district’s Jale constituency, Owaisi had answered his own question, asserting that the “M-Y had only given the state’s Muslims ghulami (servitude)” under the Yadavs — a plight that he said continued under the Nitish Kumar-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition for the past two decades. Bihar’s Muslims, Owaisi said, must “now rise and decide their own fate”.

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Owaisi slams 'so-called secular parties'

At both rallies, the parliamentarian hit out at the “so-called secular parties — RJD and Congress” for dubbing his AIMIM the “BJP’s B-Team” and asserted that his party was “no one’s team but the public’s.”

Throughout his rallies and press interactions in Bihar, Owaisi was stridently critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the NDA coalition that rules both in Patna and New Delhi. What stood out in his utterances, however, was his near equal contempt for Bihar’s main Opposition party, the RJD, as he held back no punches against Tejashwi Yadav, who he called “arrogant, haughty and misguided” for rebuffing the AIMIM’s request for being included in the Grand Alliance to “prevent a split in the secular votes”.

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Owaisi, his party’s Bihar unit chief and lone state MLA Akhtarul Iman told The Federal, had urged the RJD-led Grand Alliance to spare “only six seats for the AIMIM”.

“Muslims constitute a large chunk of not just the RJD’s voter base in Bihar but also of the Congress, which is our main ally. Will any political party allow another outfit vying for the same voting bloc to expand at the expense of its own base?” asked a former RJD MLA.

“There were no other conditions; I wrote to Lalu ji and to Tejashwi and told them that we want to be part of the alliance to prevent any split in the anti-BJP vote, but neither of them bothered to even respond to my letters,” said Iman, who represents the Amour seat in Purnia district.

AIMIM's role in 2020 polls

In 2020, Iman was among the five AIMIM candidates to be elected to the Bihar Assembly.

However, he was left as the party’s sole legislator after the others — Syed Ruknuddin, Izhar Asfi, Anzar Nayeemi and Shahnawaz Alam — defected to the RJD. The 2020 Bihar polls had seen the AIMIM try its luck across 20 constituencies, of which it won five and queered the victory pitch for the Opposition alliance in at least four others.

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In an election that ended with the Grand Alliance securing 110 seats against the NDA’s 125, the AIMIM’s foray was widely touted as a key reason for the RJD-led Opposition’s failure to wrest the reins of power.

Five years on, ahead of an election that is expected to be as close as the last one, Owaisi’s anger at being rebuffed by the RJD seems just as justified as the RJD’s refusal to cede those six seats to the AIMIM seems bewildering. More so since Owaisi now plans to field “at least 50 candidates” across Bihar’s Mithilanchal, Magadh and Seemanchal regions in constituencies that have a sizeable Muslim presence.

Assuming that Bihar’s Muslims are determined to see the back of the NDA combine and would refrain this time round from voting even for the ruling coalition’s more ‘acceptable’ outfit, Nitish’s Janata Dal (United), any split in the community’s vote between the AIMIM and the Grand Alliance is largely expected to end up aiding a 2020-like result.

Why RJD not keen on AIMIM?

So why then is the RJD so determined to keep the AIMIM at bay?

The answer, RJD sources say, lies in the political dilemma that Tejashwi finds himself in on the question of partnering with Owaisi. For starters, RJD leaders who spoke to The Federal were unanimous in their view that any truck with AIMIM would “be disastrous for the Grand Alliance” as it would “strengthen the BJP’s ongoing efforts to communally polarise the election using Owaisi as a poster boy”.

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“They (the BJP) are already using the ghuspaithiya (infiltrator) narrative to polarise the election. If we bring in Owaisi also, we will dig our own grave because everyone knows what (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi will say about us then,” said a senior Muslim leader of the RJD.

A section of RJD leaders, in fact, sees Owaisi’s offer for an alliance as a “clever ploy, possibly orchestrated by the BJP”.

'BJP gone soft on Owaisi after Pahalgam'

“From his (Owaisi’s) point of view, it is a very smart move that gives the AIMIM more legitimacy than more. If you have noticed, ever since the Pahalgam terror attack, the BJP has gone soft on Owaisi and allowed him to project himself as a nationalist. They included him in the foreign delegation (that was sent to different countries by Modi following Operation Sindoor), and he made big speeches slamming Pakistan. Now, if the BJP attacks him for being communal, he can say even Modi wanted him to represent India after Operation Sindoor, and if we accuse him of acting like the BJP’s B-Team to split Muslim votes, he can say he repeatedly asked to be included in our alliance to strengthen secular forces, but we rejected,” said another RJD leader.

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The fear of communal polarisation aside, Grand Alliance leaders say there is an even bigger concern preventing them from doing any business with the Hyderabad MP.

“Muslims constitute a large chunk of not just the RJD’s voter base in Bihar but also of the Congress, which is our main ally. Will any political party allow another outfit vying for the same voting bloc to expand at the expense of its own base?” asked a former RJD MLA who had lost the 2020 polls to an AIMIM candidate.

Congress harbours similar thought

A former Congress MLA who suffered the same fate echoed a similar view.

“In 2020, all five seats the AIMIM won were traditional seats of the RJD and Congress. Was Owaisi strengthening secular forces by ensuring our defeat? Today, he is asking for six seats because he knows the situation now is different from 2020, and Muslims are firmly behind the Grand Alliance because of Rahul and Tejashwi; he wants to take advantage of that to secure wins for his candidates. Why should we oblige? If we accommodate him, we will have to leave our traditional seats, and in the next election, he will ask us to cede more space,” he said.

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Sources in the RJD also see a “plot” in Owaisi’s attacks on Tejashwi.

“He wants to provoke a reaction. Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that Owaisi has a certain constituency among a section of Muslims; otherwise, his party would not have won five seats (in 2020). Maybe he thinks that if Tejashwi responds to his attacks in the same tone, those who voted for the AIMIM in 2020 will get offended with the RJD, but the people of Bihar are not that naive," a leader privy to the RJD’s campaign strategy said.

"From his (Owaisi’s) point of view, it is a very smart move that gives AIMIM more legitimacy than more. If you have noticed, ever since the Pahalgam terror attack, the BJP has gone soft on Owaisi and allowed him to project himself as a nationalist," said a RJD leader.

"They will also ask him why he is attacking a party that has been out of power for 20 years and why he is trying to split anti-BJP votes. Tejashwi’s instructions (to RJD leaders) are clear: no need to respond (to Owaisi), stay focused on attacking Nitish, Modi, NDA and on raising the issues our alliance wants to contest the polls on," the leader added.

'Personal ambitions should take back seat'

Manoj Kumar Jha, the RJD’s Rajya Sabha MP who has been made the party’s poll in-charge for the four Seemanchal districts of Araria, Purnia, Kishanganj and Katihar, where the AIMIM is expected to attract maximum voter engagement, told The Federal, “There are some elections in which personal ambitions of leaders to expand their parties should take a back seat so that larger public interest can be served and the upcoming Bihar election is one of those elections... those who are in a hurry to expand their party riding on the groundwork that the Grand Alliance has done for the past five years, I can only tell them that many more elections will come and you will have a chance to expand but in this election, support the alliance that is the only alternative in Bihar to the NDA; do not let your ego and ambition damage the interests and aspirations of Bihar.”