Three-time MP and president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) Asaduddin Owaisi has secured a comfortable fourth term from the Hyderabad Parliamentary constituency. Owaisi won 2,82,186 votes more than the BJP’s Dr Bhagwanth Rao. Bhagwanth Rao was Owaisi’s main competitor in the 2014 elections as well, when Owaisi won by a margin of over 2.02 lakh votes.
The seat has been held by the AIMIM since 1984, as Asaduddin Owaisi’s father Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi was elected for six consecutive terms.
50-year-old Owaisi, a barrister, is a two-time MLA from the Charminar Assembly constituency and a three-time MLA from Hyderabad, and was elected as the president of the AIMIM in 2008 following his father’s death. The AIMIM’s core base is in Hyderabad’s Old City area, and the party is in an unofficial alliance with Telangana’s ruling party, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).
Of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana, the TRS actively contested from 16 seats. In Hyderabad, the TRS fielded Puste Srikanth, a first-timer, for a friendly contest. There was not much active contention from any of the other major parties in the state. Srikanth, an entrepreneur had recently joined the party.
Owaisi contested from the Hyderabad Assembly constituency in 2004 after his father Salahuddin Owaisi refused to contest due to ill health, and was elected by a margin of a little over a lakh during his first time. This margin only increased, with Owaisi winning by a margin of 1.13 lakh in 2009 and 2.02 lakh margin in 2014.
The AIMIM has been viewed as a party backed by the Muslim community, and the party has been a vocal critic of the BJP.
So far, the TRS has not entered any pre-poll alliance and wants to create a Federal Front comprising non-BJP, non-Congress parties. AIMIM is one of the only parties that has openly offered its support to the Federal Front.
Owaisi’s win was on expected lines, as the party has held the seat for 35 years. This time, Owaisi has only managed to widen the margin.