Why the Campaign Starts in Eastern UP
With Uttar Pradesh headed to assembly polls next year, every party is already busy laying the groundwork — and AIMIM has now signalled its intent. The party has picked Bahraich as the first stop on its electoral journey, where president Asaduddin Owaisi will address a public meeting on June 14. AIMIM is treating this as the formal kickoff of its 2027 assembly campaign, a move that could reshape the arithmetic of opposition politics across eastern UP.
The Electoral Fabric of Matera
According to AIMIM's state president Shaukat Ali, Owaisi will speak near Shankarpur Chauraha in the politically sensitive Matera assembly constituency. During the day-long visit, he will also offer prayers at the dargah of Syed Salar Masood Ghazi. Matera is a seat with a distinct profile — a backward, flood-prone area with a sizeable population of Muslim, Yadav, OBC and Scheduled Caste voters. That mix is exactly why it has stayed a Samajwadi Party stronghold since 2012. Even so, victory has not always come easy for the SP here: leader Yasar Shah scraped through by a very narrow margin in 2017, while his wife Maria Shah cruised to a comfortable win in 2022.
Going Alone or in Alliance: Owaisi's Plan
Calling the visit the start of the 2027 drive, Shaukat Ali also spelled out the party's electoral ambitions. If AIMIM contests on its own, he said, it will aim to fight roughly 200 seats. Should it choose an alliance instead, its natural partner would be the BSP. His reasoning: Muslim and Dalit voters together account for about 40% of the total vote share — a figure he argues is enough to defeat both the SP and the BJP.
SP Hits Out, AIMIM Fires Back
Yasar Shah, for his part, flatly dismissed any prospect of a major AIMIM upset. He argued that Muslims are wise and alert, and have already watched the role AIMIM has played in other states. As long as AIMIM's activities indirectly benefit the BJP, he said, Muslim votes will remain unaffected. He also objected to what he saw as the politicisation of the dargah visit.
AIMIM responded sharply to these charges. Taking aim at the SP, the party said it had leaned on Muslim votes for decades without delivering development in return. One family, it noted, had held sway over Matera for more than two decades, yet the area still lagged behind in the race for development.
