The Owaisi Factor: Can AIMIM Dent Samajwadi Party’s Muslim Vote Base In UP Assembly Polls 2027?

Asaduddin Owaisi has emerged as a double-edged sword for the Samajwadi Party ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. An alliance with his AIMIM could be seen as appeasement politics, while keeping Owaisi outside the Opposition bloc could split Muslim votes in closely contested constituencies.

Aware of the SP’s conundrum, Owaisi has begun campaigning in constituencies where Muslim voters have traditionally supported the party, while also seeking a place in any Opposition alliance formed to challenge the BJP.

Owaisi has taken his campaign to Matera, Najibabad, Moradabad and Saharanpur. He has accused the SP of depending on Muslim votes without giving the community adequate political representation. AIMIM is demanding “hissedari”, or a meaningful share of political power, rather than a symbolic alliance.

AIMIM’s five-seat victory in the 2025 Bihar election has strengthened its case. Its Uttar Pradesh record, however, remains weak: the party contested 96 seats in 2022, received less than 1% of the statewide vote and failed to win a single constituency.

What Is AIMIM’s Strategy?

AIMIM is directly targeting SP strongholds. Much of its campaign has focused on western Uttar Pradesh and Rohilkhand, particularly Saharanpur, Bijnor, Moradabad and Rampur.

Owaisi began his campaign in Matera in Bahraich, which the SP has won in the past three Assembly elections. AIMIM also named its Uttar Pradesh president, Shaukat Ali, as its prospective candidate from the constituency.

In Najibabad, Owaisi questioned the performance and accessibility of three-time SP MLA Tasleem Ahmed. He made similar arguments in Moradabad and Saharanpur, accusing the SP’s Muslim representatives of failing to raise the community’s concerns effectively.

The party has announced plans to extend its campaign to Kanpur, Azamgarh and Balrampur.

AIMIM has asked the SP and Congress to begin talks early to avoid dividing anti-BJP votes. Shaukat Ali cited Bihar while making the party’s case. “We were ready for just five seats… but they didn’t listen to us. We, however, won five seats,” he said at a public rally in Moradabad.

How Strong Is The SP’s Muslim Support?

AIMIM must overcome the SP’s deep electoral base among Muslims. According to a Lokniti-CSDS post-poll survey reported by Business Standard, around 79% of Muslim voters supported the SP in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. The BJP received approximately 8% of the community’s vote.

There are about 57 Assembly seats with a high concentration of Muslim voters. The Muslim population in Uttar Pradesh can influence between 120 and 130 seats, depending on the population threshold used.

Most of these constituencies lie in western Uttar Pradesh, Rohilkhand, the Terai-Awadh belt and parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Muslims constitute more than half the population in Rampur district and around 47% in Moradabad and Sambhal. Their population share exceeds 40% in Bijnor, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Amroha, according to the 2011 Census.

In the 57 Muslim-concentrated Assembly constituencies, the SP won 34 seats in 2022. Its then ally, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, secured two. The SP-led alliance therefore won 36 of these seats, or around 63%. The BJP won 20.

The result demonstrated the SP’s advantage but also underlined the BJP’s competitiveness. Large Muslim populations did not prevent the BJP from winning several constituencies by consolidating other groups or benefiting from divided contests.

What Did 2024 Lok Sabha Result Show?

The 2024 Lok Sabha election further strengthened the SP’s position as the BJP’s principal challenger in Uttar Pradesh.

The SP won 37 of the state’s 80 parliamentary seats, while Congress secured six. The INDIA bloc finished with 43 seats, compared with 36 for the BJP-led NDA. The Azad Samaj Party won Nagina.

The alliances had changed since 2022. The RLD and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party moved to the NDA, while the SP contested alongside Congress.

A Mint analysis identified 23 Muslim-dominated Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh. The SP won six and Congress two, taking the INDIA bloc’s tally to eight. The BJP secured 12 and the RLD two, giving the NDA 14, while the Azad Samaj Party won one.

Mint also examined 34 Muslim-Yadav-dominated constituencies. The BJP had won 22 of them in 2019 but lost eight to the SP and one to Congress in 2024.

What Does The Bihar Result Mean For AIMIM?

Bihar remains AIMIM’s most successful expansion outside Telangana. The party won five seats in 2020 and repeated the tally in 2025, despite the NDA’s sweeping victory.

In 2025, AIMIM contested 28 constituencies, received around 9.30 lakh votes and secured 1.85% of the statewide vote. It won Amour, Baisi, Jokihat, Kochadhaman and Bahadurganj—all in the Muslim-concentrated Seemanchal region.

The party rebuilt its legislative presence after four of its five MLAs elected in 2020 joined the RJD in June 2022. Bihar AIMIM president Akhtarul Iman remained its sole legislator until the 2025 election restored its five-member bloc.

The result showed that AIMIM can develop a durable base within a defined region. It did not establish broad support across Bihar, as all its victories came from Seemanchal.

What Does AIMIM’s UP Record Indicate?

AIMIM contested 38 seats in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. It received around 2.04 lakh votes, secured 0.24% of the statewide vote and failed to win a seat.

It expanded to 96 constituencies in 2022, according to an Election Commission-based count by Alt News. The party polled more than 4.5 lakh votes and secured approximately 0.49% of the statewide vote but again drew a blank.

AIMIM’s votes nevertheless exceeded the winning margin in some close contests. In Kursi, it received more than 8,500 votes, while the BJP defeated the SP by only a few hundred votes. Its vote total also exceeded the victory margin in Bijnor, Nakur and Sultanpur.

These numbers show that AIMIM can affect the result when the main candidates are separated by narrow margins.

How Has The SP Responded?

The SP has not accepted AIMIM’s alliance proposal. Its leaders have cited ideological differences and said the senior leadership would decide any seat-sharing arrangement. Akhilesh Yadav has not publicly responded to Owaisi’s offer.

SP spokesperson Abbas Haider has questioned AIMIM’s organisational presence between elections. “Parties that contest selectively are often seen as vote-splitters and are not taken seriously,” he told the Hindustan Times.

AIMIM rejects the vote-splitter label. It argues that the SP and Congress seek Muslim support but resist sharing political space with a Muslim-led party.

The dispute gives Owaisi two possible routes. An alliance could secure AIMIM a small number of winnable constituencies while reducing vote fragmentation. An independent campaign would allow the party to challenge the SP directly but could divide Opposition votes in close contests.

Can BJP Benefit?

AIMIM’s presence creates different opportunities for the BJP under either scenario.

If AIMIM contests independently and draws votes away from SP-Congress candidates, the BJP could benefit in constituencies decided by narrow margins. If AIMIM joins the Opposition alliance, the BJP could use Owaisi’s inclusion to intensify its charge of minority appeasement and seek greater Hindu consolidation.

Early signs of this were visible when Owaisi reached out to Akhilesh Yadav with an alliance offer. Former BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla accused them of pursuing “appeasement politics” and described them as “two sides of the same coin”.

“Akhilesh Yadav and Owaisi have long competed in appeasement politics. Now they have set aside the contest over who will be the bigger ‘bhaijaan’ and are looking at a ‘bhaijaan collaboration’. Owaisi is effectively sending Akhilesh ji a friend request. They are two sides of the same coin,” he said.

It remains to be seen whether the SP will align with AIMIM or contest separately and risk a possible division of Muslim votes.