Patna: Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM is likely to form a third front in Bihar to contest assembly elections scheduled this year.AIMIM state president Akhtarul Iman told this newspaper on Monday that his party was in talks with the like-minded people to form a third front, like in 2020 polls, in Bihar as he got no response to his offer to RJD and Congress to join the opposition Grand Alliance to throw BJP out of power in Bihar. “Ab jagah nahin denge to rasta to nikalna padega. Chunav to ladna hin hai na (when they don’t give us space, we have to chalk out our own course. We have to contest elections, after all),” Iman said. The lone AIMIM MLA in Bihar after four others switched over to RJD admitted that he had a meeting with the national president of Akhil Bhartiya Paan Mahasangh, I P Gupta, who held a massive rally at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan in April to launch his Indian Inqalab Party (IIP). “We had positive talks as we needed each other,” Iman said.Gupta had said after his rally that they had 5 crore population in the country and were demanding since Oct 6, 2024, to give back the reservation to the Tatwa community.Iman said the AIMIM was ready to join hands with the RJD, Congress, Left and VIP in the Grand Alliance so that the votes were not divided to defeat the BJP and the NDA in Bihar. “But, we got no response from them,” he said.In the 2020 assembly elections, AIMIM had formed the Grand Democratic Secular Front with former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha’s then RLSP, Mayawati’s BSP, Devendra Prasad Yadav’s SJDD, Om Prakash Rajbhar’s SBSP and Sanjay Chauhan’s Janwadi Party.RLSP had contested 104 seats, BSP 80, SJDD 25, AIMIM 19 among others. Only AIMIM could win five seats and BSP one.
