Lucknow: Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisis- led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) feels charged up after winning two assembly seats in recent Assembly elections of Maharashtra.
The party, now, claims to challenge Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 Assembly polls by expanding its current team.
It is planning to contest at least 100 Assembly seats with sizeable Muslim population in UP.
It has even starting preparing ground for the same by setting-up organizational units in 25 districts of U.P. like Muzaffarnagar Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Moradabad, Rampur, Gorakhpur, Maharajaganj, Azamgarh and Kanpur.
It is going to public with a slogan – ‘Jai Bheem-Jai Mim (Muslim).'
In 44 other districts like Etawah, Mainpuri, Firozabad, Kannauj, Gonda, Barabanki and BIjnor, which are all stronghold areas of SP; it has plans to start a membership drive soon and set up organizational units after having at least 500 volunteers. These workers will further vote to elect five office bearers for their local bodies.
Much ahead of the 2017 Assembly polls, AIMIM has started conducting ‘nukkad meetings' and ‘jalsas' in the Muslim and Dalit dominated areas.
AIMIM's youth convener of Lucknow unit, Shahnawaz Hussain, told The Indian Express that the workers of the party are targeting the SP government for not fulfilling its promises that it made to muslims by conducting such meetings and jalsas. Husssain, was a part of one such meeting on Sunday.
Not only this, but the party is also coming up with its web portal for UP unit on February 7 to facilitate online membership.
Following this, there will be a rally by one of the party's MLA from charminar, Syed Ahmed Pasha Qadri, in Maharajganj on February 12.
Many other senior leaders of the party from Hyderabad will also address this rally.
There are four more public meetings to be addressed by Owaisi himself, starting from Bareilly on March 12, then in Allahabad on March 15, and later in Moradabad on March 22.