New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Shaukat Ali on Sunday (July 25) vehemently denied reports of his party forging an alliance with Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) ahead of the 2022 UP Assembly elections.
Shaukat Ali told ANI that neither he nor AIMIM supremo Asaduddin Owaisi has said that they will ally with SP if the latter chooses a Muslim face as the deputy chief minister if elected to power in Uttar Pradesh.
"We have never said that AIMIM will go for alliance with Samajwadi Party if Akhilesh Yadav makes a Muslim leader as deputy chief minister if the party comes into power in Uttar Pradesh. We clearly deny the reports stating that because neither I nor AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi made these statements,” AIMIM UP chief was quoted as saying by the news agency.
He added, "We said that SP has got 20 per cent of Muslim votes in the previous elections and came into power but they did not make any Muslim as deputy chief minister.”
Owaisi had earlier announced that AIMIM will contest 100 seats in UP Assembly polls scheduled early next year. AIMIM is contesting the Assembly elections under the banner of Bhagidari Sankalp Morcha, which is led by Om Prakash Rajbhar, the president of Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP).
In the 2017 UP Assembly elections, AIMIM had fielded its candidates on 38 seats but failed to win even one constituency. The BJP had won a thumping victory securing 312 seats in a 403-member Assembly in 2017. Samajwadi Party (SP) had bagged 47 seats, BSP gained 19, while Congress won only seven seats.
Uttar Pradesh will witness high-profile elections next year with the incumbent BJP government in the state looking for a second term.
