‘Bhim and Meem’: Why Owaisi is gunning for Akhilesh, eyeing alliance with Mayawati

In the wake of the Samajwadi Party (SP)’s rejection of its proposal to join the Opposition INDIA bloc for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM has intensified its campaign in the state, especially in the constituencies held by the SP.

The AIMIM is also exploring the possibility of an alliance with either the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) or Nagina MP Chandra Shekhar Aazad-led Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) for the UP polls slated for February 2027.

Kickstarting the AIMIM’s campaign from a rally at Matera in Bahraich district on June 14, Owaisi has since addressed eight more public meetings across the state, including in Kairana, Suar, Didarganj, Bhinga, Kanpur Cantonment, Moradabad Rural, Saharanpur Dehat and Najibabad.

At all these rallies, Owaisi has kept his guns trained on SP president Akhilesh Yadav, accusing him of taking Muslims for granted and not showing concern for them after garnering their votes. His next rally is scheduled in Meerut city on November 14.

Other AIMIM leaders, including its UP chief Shaukat Ali, have separately addressed public meetings in Laharpur, Nizamabad, Phoolpur Pawai and Kaiserganj in recent weeks.

All these 14 Muslim-dominated seats were bagged by the SP in the 2022 Assembly elections when the party had won 111 of the state’s 403 seats as against the BJP’s 255. Nine of the 14 SP MLAs are Muslims. The SP’s junior ally in UP, Congress, had then contested the elections separately, winning just two seats.

Owaisi has also deployed party MLA from Telangana’s Nampally, Majid Hussain, in UP for canvassing.

For the 2027 polls, the AIMIM has already announced candidates in three seats – Shaukat Ali from Matera, Engineer Irfan from Kairana (Shamli district), and Daddan Khan from Bhinga (Shrawasti district).

Speaking to The Indian Express, Shaukat Ali said the party has been preparing to contest 100 seats in the UP polls. “We want an alliance with the BSP to make a social coalition of ‘Bhim (Dalits) and Meem (Muslims)’. This is the natural alliance. AIMIM has approached BSP, and a response is awaited.”

Dalits and Muslims account for, respectively, 21% and 19% of UP’s population, making them a formidable combination in the elections. There are 84 Assembly seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) across the state, with Muslims holding significant influence in scores of seats in the western and eastern regions.

Accusing both the SP and the BJP of “exploiting” the Muslim community for political gains, Ali alleged: “The SP shows Muslims fear of BJP to get their votes. And BJP shows fear of Muslims to get votes of Hindus.”

Sources in the AIMIM said the party was also looking for an alignment with the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram).

In the 2025 Bihar elections, the AIMIM had tied up with the ASP (KR) and Swami Prasad Maurya’s Apni Janata Party. The AIMIM won 5 of 28 seats it contested, securing 15.24% votes in these seats.

In the 2022 UP polls, the AIMIM had formed a “third front”, called Bhagidari Parivartan Morcha, along with the Jan Adhikar Party led by ex-minister Babu Singh Kushwaha and the Bhartiya Mukti Morcha headed by Waman Meshram. This coalition drew a blank. The AIMIM contested 95 seats, but lost deposits in all of them, getting just 2% votes.

On the AIMIM focusing its canvassing in the SP-held seats, Shaukat Ali said, “The Muslim-dominated seats are our turfs but SP contests there. We wanted an alliance with SP but its leaders have declined our proposal.”

Aiming to clinch the UP polls for a third consecutive term, the ruling BJP is seeing the AIMIM’s outreach to the BSP for an alliance as a “positive signal”. “If AIMIM and BSP forge an alliance, Muslim votes may split. In that case, SP will become weaker, putting the BJP-led NDA in a more comfortable position,” said a senior UP BJP leader, adding that if Owaisi keeps attacking Akhilesh on Muslim issues, that would “make a dent in Muslim base of SP-Congress alliance”.

Addressing a public meeting at Kairana in Shamli district on October 26, Owaisi said Akhilesh should rename his party the “Samajwadi Yadav Parivar”, accusing him of picking “safe seats” dominated by Muslims-Yadavs for his family members. The AIMIM chief said Muslims were once elected as the MPs from the Azamgarh, Badaun and Firozabad Lok Sabha seats, but Akhilesh’s family members are MPs from there now. “Akhilesh and his Yadav family want Abdul (Muslim voter) to gift the MP and MLA seats to their children,” he claimed.

The AIMIM chief has also targeted Akhilesh over the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots when he was the chief minister, alleging that the SP supremo and his 47 Muslim MLAs had failed to prevent the Muzaffarnagar violence and protect Muslims. He alleged that Akhilesh was then attending an event featuring the Bollywood stars in his ancestral village Saifai.

Owaisi also said the SP’s Muslim MPs from Kairana and Ghazipur camped in the Seemanchal region to campaign against the AIMIM candidates during the Bihar polls even though the party was not in the fray there.

“Those who are claiming that Bhaiyya (Akhilesh)’s government is coming soon…I am telling them that the next government will be of Abdul. Abdul will become leader, MLA and raise voices of the poor and oppressed in the UP Assembly,” he said.