Bihar Elections 2025: Can Asaduddin Owaisi’s ‘Patang’ catch the Seemanchal wind in Phase 2 voting today?

Bihar Elections 2025: It is a usual Monday morning for Mohammad Afzal as he brews tea for customers near Madrasa Mumbaul Uloom – the Islamic seminary that also serves as a polling booth in Bishanpur village of Kishanganj’s Kochadhaman.

Ask Afzal – who runs the tea shop on the highway – about the mahaul (mood) ahead of the upcoming elections, and his reply comes instantly — “Patang ka hi hai, sahab, (It’s the kite’s wave, sir),” hinting at a ‘wave’ for Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen or the AIMIM.

The Patang, or kite, is the election symbol of the AIMIM. “He was the only leader who tore up the NRC Bill in the House. He said, ‘I love Mohammad.’ Who else speaks like that? He is our leader,” says Ashraf, who sips tea sitting on the bench.

AIMIM resonates in Seemanchal

As Bihar heads into the second and final phase of polling today, Asaduddin Owaisi and his party, the AIMIM, continue to strike a chord with voters in Seemanchal — a northeastern region of the state known for its high Muslim voter share and relative underdevelopment.

Ashraf recalls how AIMIM chief Owaisi tore a copy of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, in the Lok Sabha, stating that the bill aims to divide the country. The six-year-old incident remains fresh in people's minds, even though it did not bring about any change, and the Bill eventually became a law.

Ashraf also appreciates Owaisi's stand on ‘I Love Muhammad’ controversy. In October 2025, Owaisi claimed that it is easier for someone to say "I love Modi", but not "I love Mohammad" in India. The Hyderabad Member of Parliament's remarks came as Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly remained tense since a protest over "I Love Mohammad" posters row turned violent.

Why Seemanchal matters?

With Muslims comprising roughly 47 per cent of the population, Seemanchal’s 24 assembly seats hold significant political weight — especially for Asaduddin Owaisi, whose party has largely drawn its strength from Muslim voters

Seemanchal has four districts – Kishanganj, Katihar, Purnea and Araria – and has mostly elected Muslim candidates to the Assembly and the Parliament.

About two months before the Bihar polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated an airport in Purnea, one of the four Seemanchal districts. A BJP leader called it a "gift" to the people of Seemanchal. But locals are seemingly not impressed. “He came days before the election. He thinks people are fools,” Mohammad Nizami, a driver from Purnea, told this reporter ahead of elections.

When is Seemanchal voting?

One-fourth of Bihar’s 2.31 crore Muslim population lives in the Seemanchal region. The 24 constituencies of this region – approximately 10 per cent of the state's total 243 seats – will go to the polls in the second phase on 11 November. The results will be announced on 14 November.

In the past, Seemanchal has emerged as a battleground where AIMIM, otherwise limited to Hyderabad, is concentrating its efforts.

The AIMIM won five Muslim-dominated seats in Seemanchal in the 2020 assembly polls. The AIMIM's victory was a major blow to the Mahagathbandhan, as Muslim votes were divided. Four MLAs defected to the RJD, however.

Ground voices and shifting loyalties

Afzal's assembly seat, Kochidhaman in Kishanganj district, was one of the seats that the AIMIM candidate won before defecting to the RJD. The other seats where AIMIM won were Amour, Bahadurganj, Baisi, and Jokihat. Akhtarul Iman, the AIMIM president in Bihar was the only MLA from Amour who did not leave.

“Owaisi won the seats in 2020 playing on local emotions. But he vanished after elections. Politics is not just about contesting elections. People will teach him a lesson this time,” says Abu Affan Farooque, the Jan Suraaj Party candidate from Kochidhaman constituency. The AIMIM has fielded Sarwar Alam while the RJD has fielded former JD (U) leader Mujahid Alam from the seat.

Jokihat is another crucial seat for AIMIM in Seemanchal. Shahnawaz Alam, who won the seat in Araria district as AIMIM candidate in 2020 later defected to the RJD. Alam is contesting as RJD candidate in 2025. Alam's brother Sarfaraz, was RJD candidate in 2020 and is now contesting as Jan Suraaj leader in 2025

“Owaisi sahab humare numainde hai. Baaki sab to unki badawlat jeet te hain (Owaisi sahab is our true representative. The rest win only because of him),” says Mohd Rehan Ansari, a teacher from Jokihaat, who had come to attend Jan Suraaj Party chief Prashant Kishor’s rally for Alam on 28 October.

Muslim vote arithmetic

Historically, Muslims have backed the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan, with Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) also enjoying support when it stayed away from the BJP.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, for example, when Nitish Kumar broke ties with the BJP, the JD(U) received over 20 per cent of Muslim votes. In the 2015 assembly polls, JD(U) fought the elections as part of the Mahagathbandhan and secured around 19 per cent of the Muslim vote.

But in the 2020 Assembly elections, about 62 per cent of Muslims voted for the Mahagathbandhan. Only 14 per cent supported the NDA with the JD(U) as its ally. The AIMIM garnered 3 per cent of the Muslim votes, mostly in the Seemanchal belt.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, about 68 per cent of Muslim votes went to the INDIA bloc of Mahagathbandhan, while 17 per cent to the NDA {JD(U) included}.

In the 2020 polls, the NDA (BJP + JDU) won 12 seats, while the INDIA bloc had won seven seats from the region. As many as 11 of the 24 seats of Seemanchal elected a Muslim candidate in the 2020 Assembly Elections.

The Patang strategy

In the 2020 assembly elections, Muslims gave 62 per cent of their votes to Mahagathbandhan, 14 per cent to NDA, and 3 per cent to AIMIM, mostly in Seemanchal.

“I see Muslims supporting Mahagathbandhan,” Prof Mohammad Sajjad of the Department of History at Aligarh Muslim University and author of ‘Contesting Colonialism and Separatism: Muslims of Muzaffarpur Since 1857’ told Mint.

One common grievance among Muslims in the region is that the Mahagathbandhan chose Mukesh Sahani—who represents the Mallah community, accounting for barely 2–3 per cent of Bihar’s population—as its deputy chief ministerial face, instead of someone from the Muslim community, which makes up about 17 per cent of the population.

Seemanchal is also significant for the RJD-Congress alliance with a focus on Muslim and Yadav voters. According to a poll by Vote Vibe, 51 per cent of Muslims surveyed said they trust the Mahagathbandhan for the overall development of Bihar.

AIMIM is accused of playing vote-splitting among the Muslim electorate. This split could benefit the ruling alliance -- the JD (U) - Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA.

“My experience says that Muslims of Seemanchal vote wisely. They will only vote for MIM candidate in case they see a close fight with JD-U or RJD candidate. The voters in this region are not oblivious of the fact that their vote may lead to some undesirable results for them,” says Prof Sajjad, who has a doctorate in late-colonial politics of Muslims of Bihar.

Owaisi has rubbished the ‘vote splitting’ allegations in interviews. In a recent interview with Red Mike's Saurabh Shukla, the AIMIM chief expressed confidence that a ‘son of Seemanchal’ will become the chief minister of Bihar on 14 November.

“Even a leader with one MLA like Madhu Koda has become a CM in the past,” Owaisi told Red Mike, referring to 2006 incident when, Madhu Koda, an independent legislator from Jharkhand, became the Chief Minister with the support of the Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), and RJD after the fall of the Arjun Munda-led BJP government. Despite being a lone MLA, Koda managed to form and lead the government — a rare instance in Indian politics

“We have an alliance with the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) and his Janata Party,” Owaisi said in the interview.