The 2022 Gujarat assembly elections have been different in many ways. This is for the first time that a third party other than the BJP and Congress has played an effective role in the Gujarat assembly elections. This time in Gujarat, there was a power struggle between the BJP, Congress, and the Aam Aadmi Party. And in 14 seats, AIMIM also tried its luck.

AIMIM had fielded candidates in 14 seats in Gujarat where Muslim voters are in a sizeable majority. Most of these seats are traditionally called strongholds of Congress.

Asaduddin Owaisi had hoped that the Muslims of Gujarat would welcome him with open arms. He had visited Gujarat several times during campaigning and held several meetings. The AIMIM chief’s meetings received a mixed response. There was a crowd in the meetings, but at the same time, they were also seen being opposed by Muslims everywhere.

Now, as the results have come out, it can be seen that the party failed to make any mark in the election. AIMIM didn’t win any seat in Gujarat, and its vote share is less the 0.3%. Most of the AIMIM candidates lost their security deposit in the polls.

AIMIM in Gujarat elections

Out of the total of 182 seats, AIMIM had fielded its candidates from 14 seats. These 14 constituencies and their results are as follows:

1.   Bapunagar: While AIMIN was going to contest from this constituency, their candidate Shahnawaz Pathan withdrew his candidature and supported Congress on this seat. BJP has been declared the winner from here.

2.   Bhuj: Shakeel Sama got an AIMIM ticket here and crossed a mark of 15% vote share, receiving 17% votes, but he came third after BJP and Congress. BJP’s Keshubhai Patel won with more than 53% votes.

3.   Danilimda (SC): AIMIM candidate Kaushika Parmar could secure a mere 1.58% votes here and lost to Shailesh Parmar of Congress who bagged more than 44% votes. BJP’s Nareshbhai Shankarbhai Vyas was the runners-up with 35.5% vote share.

4.   Daryapur: Hasan Khan Pathan alias Hasanlala, as mentioned in his candidature form, miserably failed. He could get just around 1.42% of the votes with less than 2000 votes. BJP won this seat while Congress came second.

5.   Godhra: Mufti Hasan Kachba contested the seat known for the carnage that took place in 2002. He had to be content with a 5.1% vote share. He lost to CK Raulji of the BJP who secured above 50% votes here which is almost ten folds more than the AIMIM candidate. Congress candidate Rashmitaben Chauhan was in the second spot with over 32% votes.

6.   Jamalpur-Khadia: Sabir Kabuliwala apparently made a dent in the Congress vote share here as he received more than 12 percent of the total votes. But this was insufficient to defeat Imran Khedawala of Congress who seemingly took away a major share of the Muslim votes and won the seat. BJP’s Bhushan Ashok Bhatt was in the second position.

7.   Khambhaliya: Yaqoob Bukhari of AIMIM stood nowhere in competition with others from this constituency. He received just 733 votes, which is 0.4% of the total votes polled. Ayar Mulubhai Hardasbhai Bera of BJP won this seat with over 40% of votes, while Congress was in the second place with 23.5%.

8.   Limbayat: Abdul Basir Sheikh of AIMIM received less than 3% votes here. BJP’s Sangitaben Patil has secured victory with over 53% votes, while AAP candidate Pankajbhai Tayade came second with 21% vote share. The Congress candidate was in the third position.

9.   Mandvi: Mohammad Iqbal Manjaliya of AIMIM stood fourth on this seat with a 5% vote share whereas Aniruddha Dave of the BJP emerged as the winner with more than 53% votes.

10. Mangrol: Sulaiman Patel of AIMIM received around 7.5% votes, registering over 10000 votes. Bhagvanbhai Kargatiya of the BJP is winner from the seat, while Congress came second with 26% and AAP was third with over 23% vote share.

11. Sidhpur: Abbasbhai Nodsola contested on the AIMIM ticket and secured less than 1% votes here. BJP won the seat while Congress came second in another close contest.

12. Surat East: AIMIM candidate Wasim Qureshi got a mere 1671 votes here, which is 1.2% vote share. BJP’s Arvind Rana won from Surat East with over 52% votes. In this seat too, Congress candidate Aslam Cyclewala got a majority of the Muslim votes with 42.4% vote share.

13. Vadgam (SC): Kalpesh Sundhia fought this seat for AIMIM. But the main tussle here was between Jignesh Mewani of Congress and Manibhai Vaghela of the BJP. In the end, Jignesh Mewani emerged as the winner in a close fight.

14. Vejalpur: Zainab Bibi Shaikh of AIMIM received just 1.01% votes on this seat, with just 2310 votes. BJP’s Amit Thaker won from Vejalpur with over 56% votes.

Therefore, it can be seen that AIMIM failed to mark its presence in the Gujarat assembly elections with a negligible vote share in the seats where the party contested. Its vote share in the state is less than 0.3%, while newcomer AAP has got almost 13% of the votes polled in the state. AAP has won 5 seats in Gujarat, and it is now the third-largest party in the state in terms of both the number of MLAs and vote share.

While the forms were still being submitted, AIMIM suffered a setback. On the last day of withdrawal of forms, the AIMIM candidate from Bapunagar, Shahnawaz Pathan, withdrew his form and joined the Congress.

AIMIM had fielded candidates in almost all Muslim-dominated seats. And these seats were mostly occupied by Congress MLAs earlier. BJP has won most of these seats, with a few won by Congress. The main seats where AIMIM contested were Jamalpur-Khadia, Danilimda, Daryapur, and Vadgam.

Fearing that AIMIM would cut its Muslim votes, Congress started spreading the word that AIMIM was the B team of the BJP and Owaisi was an agent of the RSS. And they were largely successful in spreading the word.

Even before the second phase of polling, the Shahi Imam of Ahmedabad’s Jama Masjid had made a statement to the media that Muslims should not allow division in their votes. He asked Muslims to vote for congress instead of AIMIM.

Apart from this, during the election campaign, people protested against Owaisi at many places across Gujarat by waving black flags and chanting ‘Go Back’. These places include Surat and Ahmedabad.

OpIndia tried to gauge the mind of the Muslim community

Even before the first phase of elections, an OpIndia team met Muslim voters in Ahmedabad and Surat and tried to find out how they were looking at AIMIM in the Gujarat elections.

We received mixed responses in this regard. Most of the Muslim community members believed that the AIMIM could do nothing but help the BJP by cutting the Votes of Congress.

Emotional appeal by Owaisi

Owaisi became emotional when he was campaigning for the second phase of polling after the first phase of polling. On December 2, while addressing a public meeting in Jamalpur, he broke down in tears.

Owaisi cried and appealed to the people to make Sabir win so that ‘no injustice is done to any Bilkis again’. Owaisi begged for votes in front of the people and said, “Allah, please make Sabir an MLA.”

Impact of AIMIM on election results

From the results, it is clear that the AIMIM could bag more than 5% votes in just 4 constituencies. It could secure less than 5% votes in 9 constituencies. 6 of the 9 seats mark less than 1.5% vote share for AIMIM. This is so minimal that it has no effect on the election results except for some publicity gimmicks by the Hyderabad-based Muslim leader.

12 out of these 14 Muslim-majority seats were won by the BJP. Major fights on all these seats were between Congress and BJP only. AIMIM was not in second place in any of these seats. In fact, it was in the fourth spot on 7 out of these 14 seats.