Asaduddin Owaisi, Chandrashekhar Azad's Parties Form UP Poll Pact, Eye Dalit-Muslim Unity

Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) arrived in Lucknow on Wednesday ahead of an expected announcement of an alliance with Chandrashekhar Azad's Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) for the 2027 assembly elections due by February. The two parties have finalised the deal after several rounds of meetings, sources told NDTV. They are likely to announce the alliance at a joint press conference in Lucknow on Thursday.

The partnership brings together a party that seeks to represent Muslims and one that is trying to build a Dalit political base. Together they are attempting to create an alternative formation outside the ruling BJP-led NDA and the Samajwadi Party-led opposition.

UP AIMIM president Shaukat Ali said the party turned to Azad after it was rebuffed by the main opposition parties, naming the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, besides Mayawati's BSP, which has its core base among Dalits. "We have always wanted a strong alliance to be formed so that the BJP does not come to power in Uttar Pradesh for a third term," he said. "Muslims have suffered the most under the BJP government," Ali alleged.

"I don't know in what dream Akhilesh Yadav is living. As far as I can see, this SP-Congress alliance is the same alliance that fought the 2017 Uttar Pradesh election, and the result will be the same," Ali added, when asked about a wider alliance. He cited the 2025 Bihar assembly elections, in which the BJP-JDU alliance (NDA) retained power while the RJD and Congress did not ally with Hyderabad-headquartered Owaisi's AIMIM.

ASP chief Azad, the Lok Sabha member from Nagina, also attacked the BJP government in UP and said the alliance with AIMIM "will work to empower the youth, farmers and weaker sections". He said the two parties aim to bring deprived communities into the mainstream. "Issues like vote theft are before us. We are still suffering the consequences of demonetisation, but the bigger concern is the declining number of government jobs. Educated young people from Dalit and backward communities are struggling despite having degrees," Azad said.

Akhilesh Yadav was asked about the alliance, to which he said, "The people of Uttar Pradesh have already made up their minds in favour of the Samajwadi Party."

Alliance Arithmetic

Neither party has won an assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh. In 2022, the AIMIM contested over 90 seats and polled less than half a per cent of the vote. The ASP fielded over 100 candidates and polled 0.13 per cent.

Azad contested Gorakhpur Urban against Yogi Adityanath and polled fewer than 8,000 votes, forfeiting his deposit. Two years later, Azad won the Nagina Lok Sabha seat, giving his party its first elected representative.

But they are betting on the wider arithmetic. Muslims make up about 19 per cent of Uttar Pradesh's population and Scheduled Castes or Dalits about 21 per cent.

The alliance is betting on districts where the two groups together form a majority, several of which are also SP strongholds in western Uttar Pradesh. For instance, in Rampur, Muslims are about 50 per cent of the population and Dalits 13 per cent. In Moradabad, the combined share is over 60 per cent.

In Saharanpur, where Dalits are over 20 per cent and Muslims over 40 per cent, multiple seats become possible success stories for the alliance if indeed people vote only along those lines.

Bijnor has multiple such seats too, including assembly segments that are part of Azad's Lok Sabha constituency. In Amroha and Sambhal, the two groups together make up over 50 per cent. The alliance could also be a factor in about a dozen seats across Bahraich, Shravasti, Bareilly, Meerut, Azamgarh and Mau.

This poses a potential challenge to Akhilesh Yadav's PDA (Pichhde, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) formulation, on which the SP won 37 of the state's 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2024.

Owaisi is seeking Muslim representation and Azad a larger space in Dalit politics, so the two leaders are targeting the voters the SP counts under the PDA banner.

The alliance's prospects will depend on actual seat-sharing, local leadership, and the ability to consolidate their support bases.