AIMIM president, Asaduddin Owaisi, on Saturday announced that his party will contest elections in Bihar.
Talking to reporters, Owaisi said the it was ‘fallacy’ for mainstream political parties to think that ‘only they can be flag-bearers of secularism.’
He rubbished the charge that his entry in Bihar will brighten the poll prospects of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, which is seeking to wrest the power from the two-term chief minister, Nitish Kumar.
He said, “we didn’t contest municipal polls in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Why did the so-called secular parties not win there?”
Reacting to this announcement, Bihar’s ruling Janata Dal United said that it ‘not bothered’ by AIMIM’s entry in Bihar.
The party spokesperson, KC Tyagi told ABP News that Muslims in the state had ‘made up their mind to vote for Nitish Kumar.’
AIMIM, had made an electoral debut outside what was formerly known as undivided Andhra Pradesh when it fielded 18 candidates in 2014 assembly elections in Maharashtra. The party won two assembly seats. his detractors, however, had accused him of deliberately causing divisions among Muslim votes, thereby making it ‘easy for the BJP.’