Hyderabad MP and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi announced on Friday, 3 November, that his party would contest nine seats in the Telangana Assembly elections scheduled to be held on 30 November.
They include the current AIMIM-represented seats, namely Chandrayangutta, Nampally, Malakpet, Yakutpura, Charminar, Karwan, and Bahadurpura – as well as Rajendranagar and Jubilee Hills.
In the 2018 Assembly elections, the AIMIM contested in eight Assembly constituencies – and their sole loss was recorded in Rajendranagar.
The Hyderabad MP also announced candidates in six of the nine constituencies – and the names of two sitting MLAs, Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri and Mumtaz Ahmed Khan, have been dropped from the list.
Here are the key takeaways from the first list of candidates.
1. Who Are the Candidates?
Chandrayangutta: Akbaruddin Owaisi, sitting MLA and brother of Asaduddin Owaisi, will be contesting from this constituency yet again. He has represented Chandrayangutta from 1999 to date.
Nampally: Mohammed Majid Hussain, who served as the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Mayor from 2011-2014 and 2015-2020, will be contesting as an MLA from Nampally for the first time. He is currently the corporator from the Mehdipatnam Division of the GHMC, and is said to have been the architect of AIMIM's good performance in the 2020 Bihar elections.
Malakpet: Ahmed Bin Abdullah Balala won Malakpet in the 2009, 2014, and 2018 elections. From 2002 to 2007, he served as a corporator from the Pathergatti Division of the GHMC.
Yakutpura: The sitting MLA of the Nampally constituency, Jaffar Hussain Meraj served as the Deputy Mayor of the GHMC. In 2014, too, he was elected as the Nampally MLA.
Charminar: Mir Zulfiqar Ali was elected as a corporator from Hussaini Alam in 1986 and has served as Mayor of the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (now GHMC) in 1991. He is contesting as an MLA from the Charminar Assembly constituency for the first time.
Karwan: Kausar Mohinuddin has served as the Karwan MLA for the past two terms.
The candidates for Bahadurpura, Jubilee Hills, and Rajendranagar are yet to be announced.
2. Two Sitting MLAs Dropped
Asaduddin Owaisi, speaking at a press conference at the AIMIM office in Hyderabad's Darussalam, said that Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri, the sitting MLA of Yakutpura, and Mumtaz Ahmed Khan, the current Charminar MLA, have been dropped from the list.
"I met both leaders and told them that I will not be able to give them tickets this time. I still urged them to be a part of our campaigns and work for the party's win. Both of them agreed instantly and said they would work for the party," Owaisi said.
Ahmed Pasha Quadri was a close friend of late Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, Asaduddin Owaisi's father. He won from Charminar in 2004 and retained it in 2009 and 2014. In 2018, he contested from Yakutpura and won.
Mumtaz Ahmed Khan, on the other hand, became an MLA first in 1994. He later joined the AIMIM and became an MLA in 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014 from Yakutpura. In 2018, he swapped seats with Ahmed Pasha Quadri and won the Charminar constituency.
Even as Owaisi claimed that the two leaders were happy to make way for the youngsters, speculation is rife that Mumtaz Ahmed Khan is looking to join the Majlis Bachao Tehreek (which he was once a part of). The Congress party, according to a Times of India report, is also looking to rope him and his family in.
3. Nampally Seat Changes Hands
The first list names the sitting MLAs of Chandrayangutta, Malakpet, and Karwan as their respective candidates. Charminar, Nampally, and Yakutpura are the exceptions.
While Jaffar Hussain Meraj, who is the two-time sitting MLA of the Nampally constituency, was given Yakutpura, the Nampally seat went to Majid Hussain.
But why was Nampally not given to Meraj this time?
In the 2018 elections, Meraj's victory margin was reduced by his opponent and Congress candidate Mohammad Feroz Khan. While Meraj gained 57,940 votes, Feroz Khan was at 48,265 votes.
In 2014, when Meraj won 63,652 votes, Feroz Khan (who was in the Telugu Desam Party at the time) secured just 46,356 votes. This time, too, the Congress has fielded Feroz Khan – and the party's growing popularity in the state makes him a strong opponent for the AIMIM.
On the other hand, Majid Hussain – who has the experience of being the GHMC mayor for two terms – was the party's Bihar in-charge in the 2020 Assembly elections and ensured its victory in five seats in the state.
4. Why Jubilee Hills?
The party had fielded Naveen Yadav from the Jubilee Hills Assembly constituency in the 2014 elections but was defeated by the TDP's Maganti Gopinath, who is now the sitting Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLA. In 2018, it did not field a candidate but has decided to do so again in the 2023 polls.
This, perhaps, has something to do with the Congress fielding Mohammed Azharuddin. The BRS and the AIMIM are poll allies in this election too, and fielding a candidate from Jubilee Hills – which has a large section of Mulsim voters – may be an attempt to dent the Congress' chances.
The BRS, yet again, has fielded Maganti Gopinath as its candidate.
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