The Bihar assembly elections saw a close contest between the NDA alliance and the Mahagathbandhan alliance, with the former managing to win the elections with 125 seats, crossing the halfway mark required to form a government in the state. The victory of NDA in Bihar meant that the Congress party would continue its dismal electoral performance, losing yet another assembly poll. Soon after the trends indicated that MGB would fall short of the numbers required to form a government in Bihar, Congress attempted to fend off the inadequacies of the Congress party by pinning the blame of their defeat on AIMIM.
Congress alleged that that Asaduddin Owaisi’s party, which won 5 of the 20 seats it fought in the Bihar elections, acted as a “vote katua” party which resulted in Congress’ defeat.
However, these allegations were staunchly opposed by AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, who took to Twitter to demolish the claims made by the Congress party. He had alleged that Congress is blaming its failures on AIMIM’s success.
…was higher than our votes. NDA would have won regardless of our candidate. In other words, MGB failed to defeat NDA on these seats
— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) November 11, 2020
In Sherghati, RJD fielded a candidate from extremist Durga Vahini but still won. What does that say about radicalisation & ‘vote cutters’? [2/2] pic.twitter.com/r68GGTGv3a
Owaisi shared the statistics of the 20 seats on which his party’s candidates fought elections. Out of 20 seats that AIMIM fought on, they won 5 while MGB bagged 9 seats and the NDA emerged victorious in the remaining 6 seats.
Sharing the details of the victory margins of the NDA candidates on the 6 seats that they won, Owaisi alleged that the margin was higher than the total votes secured by AIMIM candidates on those seats. Meaning, NDA would have won even if all those votes received by AIMIM had gone to MGB. As the votes received by AIMIM in those seats is less then the margin of victory of NDA candidates, the MGB candidates would have still ended up losing the seats.
On Sahebgunj seat, NDA alliance partner VIP’s Raju Kumar Singh won the elections with the victory margin of over 15,000 votes. The AIMIM candidate in this constituency managed to get only 4000 odd votes.
Similarly, BJP candidates from Chhatapur won with the vote margin of over 20,000 votes. Here, too, AIMIM candidate Alam could manage to secure only 1,990 votes.
In Narpatganj, Jai Prakash Yadav from BJP won by over 28,500 votes while the AIMIM candidate got 5,495 votes.
Similar was the story for Pranpur, Raniganj and Barari constituencies, where the NDA candidates secured a significantly higher number of votes as compared to their AIMIM counterparts, indicating that the votes collected by Owaisi’s party would have made little difference on the final outcome if they had not contested the elections and all of their votes had gone to MGB candidates.
It is notable that AIMIM had fielded Hindu candidates in several seats, like Phulwari, Sahabpur Kamal, Manihari, Raniganj and Barari. Therefore, even if AIMIM had not contested in those seats, it can’t be said that all of those votes would have gone to MGB candidates, and and some AIMIM votes could have gone to NDA candidates also.
Owaisi says Congress leadership is politically impotent to take on the Modi government
Earlier yesterday, Owaisi and Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera were involved in a heated argument over mutual allegations of radicalisation. Khera had gone on to allege that AIMIM’s “counter-radicalisation “ helped NDA secure majority in the state.
These allegations were fiercely opposed by the AIMIM chief, who contended that Congress’ time is over and yet the party refuses to see the winning on the wall. He accused them of hiding their own shortcomings which led to their defeat.
Owaisi tore into the Congress party, claiming that the party leadership was “politically impotent” to take on the Modi government. He also also accused Congress of being a party that promoted radicalisation of youth, with its former PM Rajiv Gandhi opening the locks of Babri structure and more recently, by allying with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.
