NEW DELHI: It’s yatra season in Bihar, as the state gears up for the upcoming assembly elections. After the Mahagathbabdhan’s “Voter Adhikar Yatra” which was led by Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav’s ongoing “Bihar Adhikar Yatra”, it is now Asaduddin Owaisi, the chief of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), who is leading his party’s ‘Seemanchal Nyay Yatra’. While all the three yatras aim to mobilise voters against the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government in the state, there is a political subtext which points to the fight within in the opposition space. While Tejashwi’s ongoing yatra is perhaps an effort to establish his dominance within the Mahagathbandhan and counter the narrative that he played second fiddle to Rahul Gandhi during the Voter Adhikar Yatra, Owaisi’s yatra in the Seemanchal region may actually end up dividing the opposition space – like it did five years back.The Seeemanchal region, comprising four districts of Purnia, Araria, Kishnaganj and Katihar, has a high concentration of Muslims.Why Owaisi is keen to join the MahagathbandhanIn the 2020 Bihar assembly elections, AIMIM fought on 20 seats and won five of them — Amour, Kochadaman, Baisi, Jokihat, and Bahadurganj. However, four of the AIMIM MLAs eventually joined the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in 2022.The NDA had then returned to power by winning 125 seats as against the Mahagathbandhan’s 110. The AIMIM was then blamed for the Mahagathbandhan’s failure to get a majority, by cutting into Muslim votes, especially in the Seemanchal region, which has a sizeable population of the minority community. The RJD and the Congress had then blamed Owaisi for being the B team of the BJP and helping the saffron party.This time around, Owaisi seems to have changed his strategy and has made several public pronouncements about his desire to join the Mahagathbandhan. The AIMIM has not only written letters to RJD bosses- Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi seeking an alliance, but the party, perhaps in a first, also held a demonstration with drums outside the residence of former CM Rabri Devi demanding its inclusion in the opposition INDIA bloc to “prevent a split of secular votes”. The AIMIM has said that it wants to contest only on 6 seats as part of the Mahagathbandhan.”We made the move so that we do not face accusations of helping the BJP. A lack of proper response on RJD’s part will make it clear who is actually helping the BJP,” Owaisi said reacting to the lack of response from RJD to his alliance offer.”Our Bihar president Akhtarul Iman wrote three letters to Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Yadav expressing our wish to join the INDIA bloc. We had demanded only six seats. We are not interested in any ministerial berth. We only wanted to be treated as equals and not as slaves in the joint fight against BJP and RSS. But, so far, no response has come from them,” the Hyderabad MP added.“My appeal to you is to strengthen your political leadership. We will not go to outsiders’ doors to beg… I and Akhtarul Iman, wrote letters to Lalu Prasad Yadav. After that, Tejashwi Yadav said that he had not received it. My brother, when the father is alive in a household, and a matter is presented in front of elders, the younger ones do not have the right to say: ‘You told the elder, but not me’,” Owaisi said while addressing a rally in Kishanganj.Why RJD may not be interested in Owaisi allianceThe RJD, which is going all out to wrest power from Nitish Kumar this time around, should have ideally latched on to the AIMIM offer to ensure there was no division of Muslim votes in the assembly elections. However, the party is yet to respond to Owaisi’s overtures.For the RJD, Owaisi’s alliance offer presents a difficult situation.The RJD, over the years, has drawn its core support from the Yadavs and Muslims. Accepting Owaisi as an alliance partner, RJD would have to concede part of that space to Owaisi, a move that may not be politically prudent for either Lalu or Tejashwi Yadav.Traditionally, Yadavs and Muslims have formed the core voter base of Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata DalSecondly and perhaps more importantly, if Owaisi joins the Mahagathbandhan, it will give the BJP and NDA a strong ground to press with its charge of appeasement politics. Already, the Mahagathbandhan’s campaign against vote theft and Rahul Gandhi’s yatra has been lebelled by the BJP as an effort to save the alleged infiltrators, who are mostly Muslims from Bangladesh.The charge has been led by none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, in an election rally earlier this month accused opposition parties of shielding illegal immigrants and asserted that infiltration had caused a “demographic crisis” in eastern states like Bihar, Assam and West Bengal, making people “worried for the honour of their sisters and daughters”.“This was the reason why I had announced a demography mission from the Red Fort (on Independence Day). But such is vote bank politics that Congress, RJD and their entire ecosystem are busy defending and shielding the foreign infiltrators,” PM Modi had alleged.“They have become so shameless that they are raising slogans and taking out yatras in support of infiltrators from foreign countries,” he had said, in an apparent reference to the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ of the Congress.“But let me tell RJD, Congress and their ilk that the NDA is committed to driving out each and every infiltrator. I challenge leaders who are trying to protect infiltrators to try with all their might. We will continue to flush out infiltrators,” the PM had asserted.Clearly, if the Mahagathbandhan takes Owaisi’s party into its fold, this BJP campaign will become a lot more shriller in the run up to elections and may actually end up polarising the voters. Little wonder, the RJD may perhaps risk some division of votes rather than go on the defensive under the charge of helping infiltrators (read minorities). 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