AIMIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi has committed to enter the Telangana Assembly “with atleast 15 MLAs next time, contesting in around 50 seats” across the state in the 2023 elections.
The plan, if stuck to, could spell trouble for the ruling BRS which regards Muslims as its vote bank except in the seven segments of Hyderabad. This is especially when it is facing the BJP onslaught.
The Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi led party has been an informal ally of chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao since the state formation in 2014.
The aspired figure is double the number of seven MLAs the Muslim vote based party has been maintaining in Telangana – all from Hyderabad, since 2009.
Telangana has a total of 119 Assembly constituencies.
Akbaruddin's interesting pledge now came during the Saturday debate in the house on the motion of thanks to Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan's budget session address a day before.
The Chandrayangutta MLA, younger brother of Asaduddin, was reportedly reacting to a “taunt” by BRS minister KT Rama Rao that “the AIMIM is only a party of seven.”
“I have taken a very serious note of the comment passed on AIMIM. I will talk to my party president to see we contest in more seats in the coming elections. We will make sure we come here with at-least 15 MLAs by contesting in 50 seats. I hope to make our chief agree to my plan of achieving more MLAs instead of seven,” Akbaruddin said in the Assembly on Saturday.
“And then we'll work together once again with Bharat Rashtra Samiti,” Akbaruddin added mockingly.
The AIMIM managed to open its legislative accounts in Maharashtra, Bihar, but its tally back home remained at seven in the previous three elections, 2009, 2014, and 2018, regardless of the number of seats contested in united Andhra Pradesh and Telangana later.
It contested in eight seats in 2009 and 2018. Even in the 2014 polls, when it ambitiously put up candidates in 35 segments in Telangana and Andhra, its legislator figure stayed at seven.
All these seven seats – Chandrayangutta, Nampally, Yakutpura, Bahadurpura, Malakpet, Karwan and Charminar are in Hyderabad and where the minority community has a large presence.