Who Let Down RJD? Asaduddin Owaisi's Angry Retort On "BJP's Team B" Allegation

The AIMIM having won five assembly seats in Bihar, party chief Asaduddin Owaisi made it clear he was expecting allegations of "BJP's B team" again - this time from the main opposition party Rashtriya Janata Dal, which has been decimated in this election. The scale of the Mahagathbandhan's defeat, though, leaves more to be explained, Owaisi pointed out. In an exclusive interview with Rahul Kanwal the Chief Executive Officer and Editor-in-Chief of NDTV, he also declared that he will contest the next assembly election in Uttar Pradesh. Bengal, though, is yet to be decided.

NDTV data has showed that of the 23 seats that AIMIM contested, they had played spoiler in eight. Six of these were won by the NDA and two by the Opposition alliance. Asked if the allegations of "B Team" can be justified under the circumstances, Owaisi scoffed. 

"Can any of these people who blame me, can they tell us after giving 36 per cent of tickets to 14 per cent Yadavs, why have they lost? Do they have this intellectual honesty or braveness or boldness to say that, oh, the Yadavas didn't vote for us, we lost," Owaisi said. 

"Do they have this honesty to say, we were about to give a community with 3.5 per cent population the post of a deputy Chief Minister and they did not support us?" he added, pointing out that the Muslims comprise a far larger chunk of voters. 

Besides Muslims, there are other sections, he said -- the Brahmins, Thakurs, Bhumihars and the Extremely Backward Classes - whose votes the Opposition could have drawn. "Why does it all boil down to Muslims," he questioned. 

Owaisi's party has pointed out that they had initially approached the opposition alliance seeking six seats but the RJD's Tejashwi Yadav had refused to oblige.

Owaisi said for years, parties in India have blamed Muslims when they failed to win. 

"Three times Mr Modi has become the Prime Minister. Once again, the people of Bihar have given a mandate to Nitish Kumar. It is shocking to hear what Akhilesh Yadav has told the media. He is blaming SIR," Owaisi said. 

But together, Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi have lost multiple parliamentary and assembly elections starting 2014. "So what is it that you want us to do? What is it these people expect the Muslims to do?" he said.

Asked about the coming elections in Uttar Pradesh and Bengal, he said about Bengal, "We will have to sit and decide, but right now I think it is too early... But as far as UP is concerned, the game is on". 

His party, he said, will definitely try to win more seats in Uttar Pradesh. "We hope that this alliance which we had formed with Chandrasekhar Azad or with Soumya Prasad Maurya continues in UP," he added. 

In 2020, the AIMIM had won five seats in Bihar, all of them in the Seemanchal region. This time, they gave a repeat performance.
Seemanchal's four districts -- Araria, Katihar, Kishanganj and Purnea - have 24 assembly seats between them and a large portion of the state's Muslim population. 

The party has retained the constituencies it won last time - Kochadhaman and Bahadurganj in Kishanganj district, Amour and Baisi in Purnea, Jokihat in Araria.