Hyderabad: The MIM will contest the Lok Sabha elections outside of Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh for the first time. The party has announced that it would field its candidates from Aurangabad in Maharash-tra and Kishangunj in Bihar.
Though the MIM leadership is under pressure to field candidates in other parts of India, particularly from UP, no decision has been taken so far.
Party president Asaduddin Owaisi announced on Tuesday that the party’s Aurangabad Central legislator Mr Syed Imtiyaz Jaleel would be the party candidate for the Lok Sabha seat. Mr Owaisi had declared the candidature of Mr Akhtarul Iman from the Kishangunj parliamentary constituency of Bihar.
Mr Owaisi had said many times in the past that Mr Iman, president of the Bihar unit, would contest as the party candidate from Kishangunj. In 2014, Mr Iman left the Rashtriya Janata Dal and joined the Janata Dal (United) and was fielded from Kishangunj. He withdrew in favour of late Moulana Mohammed Asra ul Haque of the Congress, who retained the seat. He joined the MIM and was made president of the state unit.
Mr Syed Imtiyaz Jaleel, a journalist-turned-politician, defeated sitting Shiv Sena legislator Pradeep Jaiswal by a margin of 20,000 votes in the 2014 Assembly elections from the Aurangabad Central segment.
In Maharashtra, the MIM is supporting the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) headed by Mr Prakash Ambedkar. It is learnt that Mr Owaisi was not in favour of contesting from Maharashtra for the general elections but came under immense pressure from party workers to field at least two candidates from the state.
In 2014, the MIM had fielded 34 candidates for the Assembly and contested the Lok Sabha elections from five seats in the Telugu states — Hyderabad, Secunder-abad, Malkajgiri and Bhongir in Telangana state and Nandyal in Andhra Pradesh.
The party fielded 35 candidates in the 1989 Assembly elections in undivided Andhra Pradesh and 20 in 1994. Since then, the number of its candidates have never touched double digits till 2104.
