Ahead of the Assembly election in Bihar Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen has been caught in a devil and the deep sea like situation. After its August 16 rally in Kishanganj in Muslim-concentrated north-eastern part of the state, also known as Seemanchal, he has come under heavy fire from various quarters of Muslims. Former Rajya Sabha MP, Dr Ejaz Ali, prominent surgeon, Dr Ahmad Abdul Hai, retired bureaucrat Shafi Mashhadi, youth activist, Kashif Yunus (who in fact attended Owaisi’s function), former journalist, Naiyer Fatmi, secretary of Bihar Rabita Committee, Afzal Husain Khan and social activist, Arshad Ajmal were those who came out openly against him.

No doubt, with the help of former RJD MLA Akhtar-ul-Iman, who floated Samaji Insaf Morcha, Owaisi managed to mobilise a sizeable crowd. A section of them came from neighbouring districts of West Bengal, which too have a substantial Muslim population.

Owaisi’s style of politics is not acceptable to many Muslims, especially outside Old Hyderabad, and some pockets of Maharashtra.

Still some community members would appreciate him for the way he counters media, especially TV anchors.

Yet after August 16 rally in Kishanganj he started losing goodwill among this very section of Muslims of Bihar. Ten days later they are questioning his reported plan to contest Assembly election.

Though neither he nor Akhtar-ul-Iman made any final announcement about the number of seats the Majlis would contest, reports quoting sources within suggest that it may put up candidates in about two dozen seats, mostly in the Muslim pockets of Bihar, where the strength of the House is 243.

Owaisi’s trip to Bihar has alarmed many Muslims of neighbouring West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh as well. These two states have Muslim concentrated pockets and are going for Assembly elections in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

Delivering fierce speeches and fielding media’s question as well as doing politics at the grassroots level are two totally different issues. Muslims, in general, have now learnt from the results of Maharashtra election last year, where Majlis could win only two seats. The division of Muslim votes helped BJP and Shiv Sena win.

Besides, Maharashtra, should not be mistaken with Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, where Muslims in general are strongly associated with the regional secular parties such as RJD-JD(U) alliance, Trinamool Congress, and Samajwadi Party.

Owaisi tried to use the same diction against the RJD-JD(U) combine, which he used against Congress and BJP in Maharashtra. This approach backfired in Bihar. He can not equate these regional parties with the Congress of Maharashtra.

People of Kishanganj are now quite aware of the the consequences of the so-called Muslim leaders from outside who use them as a platform to achieve political goal.

Diplomat-turned-politician and Insaf Party leader, Syed Shahabuddin contested first to be followed by M J Akbar and Shahnawaz Hussain on Congress and BJP tickets later. None of them were from this Muslim concentrated belt.

But Owaisi dexterously used Akhtar-ul-Iman, a former RJD MLA from Kocha Dhaman, an assembly segment in Kishanganj parliamentary constituency. But Akhtar-ul-Iman has lost much of his credibility after last year Lok Sabha election as he ditched both RJD and JD(U) within two months.

Just on the eve of 2014 Lok Sabha election he left RJD to join JD(U) and got ticket from Kishanganj parliamentary constituency. RJD was not in position to give him ticket because it was in alliance with the Congress, which already had sitting MP, Maulana Asrar-ul-Haq in the fray. Both of them are Surjapuri Muslims, who dominate the constituency.

But 10 days before the polling day for Kishanganj (that was April 24, 2014) Akhtar-ul-Iman called a Press conference and announced his withdrawal stating that he does not want to split votes of the minorities. Like RJD a month earlier, the JD(U) leadership was furious over this backstabbing as the party could not put up any other candidate at this stage.

As five phases of polling were yet to take place, Akhtar-ul-Iman’s decision to withdraw in favour of a Muslim Congress candidate helped polarize the votes further in Bihar, neighbouring West Bengal, Assam and even in Uttar Pradesh. This helped BJP in a big way.

Not only is Owaisi’s choice of Akhtar-ul-Iman questionable the news that he may join hands with Pappu Yadav, the expelled RJD MP from Madhepura, is not going down well as of late Muslims are quite suspicious of Pappu’s activities.

A couple of months back the Union home ministry upgpraded Pappu’s security cover to Y-category. Besides, of late he has been openly interacting with the BJP bigwigs, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

But then there are a few Muslim ticket aspirants and rejects from different parties, who are junping the MIM bandwagon with the hope of getting ticket.