Asaduddin Owaisi reckons that a strong anti-BJP sentiment among Uttar Pradesh's Muslim voters will give his party a leg up. (File Photo)
The campaign for by-elections to be held in three Uttar Pradesh assembly constituencies today indicates that communal polarisation will be a favourite political tool of parties in the run-up to crucial state elections now a year away.
And UP has a new gladiator - Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Musalmeen (AIMIM).
Mr Owaisi has fielded Pradeep Kori, a Dalit, as his party's candidate in Bikapur and has campaigned twice, repeatedly bringing up the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2014 which polarised voters not only in western UP, but across the state.
The AIMIM plans to cash in on the rise of the BJP, which is accused by rivals of polarising Hindu votes to win 71 of UP's 80 seats in the 2014 national election.
Mr Owaisi reckons this has created a strong anti-BJP sentiment among the state's 18 per cent Muslim voters and sees a chance to get their support, which the ruling Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav counts on heavily.
"Muslims voted for the SP in 2012. What did they get. We are raising the atrocities that Muslim have had to face in Western UP, while the SP government did little to protect those who had voted for it," Mr Kori said to NDTV.
With Mayawati's BSP, which never contests by-polls, not in contention, Mr Owaisi's party also hopes to garner the support of its core Dalit vote by fielding Mr Kori, who belongs to one of the state's poorest communities.
A threatened SP has mobilised Yadavs and other backward castes and is hoping that minority voters will choose to back it again to ensure a BJP defeat.
Dharmendra Yadav, SP lawmaker and Mulayam Yadav's nephew, has called the AIMIM the "B Team" of the BJP. "Muslims in UP know why the AIMIM is here. They made a mistake in 2014 but now they will not help a party which is out to assist the BJP," he said.
The BJP's campaign in Muzaffarnagar has been provocative with it's leaders talking about Jat pride in constituencies dominated by the caste, but in Bikapur, 620 km away, the party has run a low-profile campaign.
Bikapur is 15 km from Ayodhya but there is no mention of the Ram Temple in the party's campaign. Sources in the BJP's ideological mentor, the RSS and its affiliate the VHP however say that a high-pitch campaign on the Ram Mandir is being constructed for the assembly elections.