On January 7, Maharashtra AIMIM president Imtiaz Jaleel was manhandled by disgruntled party supporters while campaigning in Baijipura in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar as anger spilled out within the party ranks over ticket distribution for the municipal corporation elections there.A week earlier, on December 28, the party’s Mumbai city president Farooq Shabdi had resigned with an emotional message, speaking of leaving a party he loved and hinting at friction with the state leadership.AdvertisementTogether, these episodes exposed deep disarray within the Asaddudin Owaisi-led AIMIM which, despite its limited footprint, commands outsized attention in Maharashtra’s political discourse.Yet, days later, the mood had shifted sharply. On Friday, Jaleel stood before cheering supporters, flexing and thumping his arm in a traditional wrestler’s show of confidence, as the AIMIM pulled off a striking turnaround as results of the civic polls were announced. The party won 126 corporator seats in 13 corporations across Maharashtra, nearly three times the tally of the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (SP) and just 30 fewer than the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), marking its strongest municipal showing in the state so far.Performance in corporationsThe AIMIM emerged as one of the biggest gainers in Maharashtra’s municipal corporation elections, doubling its strength to 126 corporators while expanding its presence across 13 urban local bodies.AdvertisementThe party’s strongest performance came in Sambhajinagar, where it won 33 seats in the 115-member civic body, its best showing there so far. The city, earlier known as Aurangabad, has long been central to AIMIM’s rise in the state and is also home to state party chief Jaleel, who has represented it as both an MP and an MLA.Beyond Sambhajinagar, the AIMIM won 21 seats in Malegaon, 14 in Nanded, 13 in Amravati, 10 in Dhule, 8 in Solapur, 6 in Nagpur, 5 in Thane, 3 in Akola, 2 each in Ahilyanagar and Jalna, and 1 in Chandrapur.In Mumbai, the party recorded a sharp rise, from two seats in 2017 to eight seats this year. Most of these victories came from Govandi and the adjoining Cheeta Camp area in the eastern suburbs. Located near the Deonar dumping ground, this belt is among the city’s most densely populated and economically marginalised zones with a large Muslim population. The AIMIM largely displaced the Uttar Pradesh-based Samajwadi Party (SP) here, winning five seats that had previously been the SP’s strongholds. Of its eight Mumbai corporators, seven are Muslim and one is Dalit.Also Read | Vandita Mishra writes: Two stories from Maharashtra’s local polls, one puzzle of India’s politicsAIMIM’s baseThe municipal corporation results underline the steady, though geographically limited, growth of the AIMIM in Maharashtra, despite the party lacking a strong cadre structure and facing frequent defections.The party’s main support base remains Muslims, who account for 11.54% of Maharashtra’s population, according to the 2011 Census. In Mumbai, Muslims make up over 20% of the population, while in Malegaon they constitute more than 75%, both key centres of the AIMIM’s expansion.The AIMIM has tapped into a sense of political underrepresentation among sections of Muslim voters, particularly the youth, who feel mainstream parties have failed to raise issues affecting the community or speak forcefully against perceived injustices. This is reflected in the party’s corporator profile, with a majority of its elected representatives under the age of 40.“In today’s political and social condition in India, there is a large-scale angst among Muslim youth about the inability of political leaders to speak in support of the minority community. The fact that Asaduddin Owaisi speaks on these issues in a manner that even the opposite side fails to rebut puts him in a special situation in front of the community’s youth, which does favour him,” said Waseem Furqan, an AIMIM supporter from Govandi.“The AIMIM for us stands as an option between the communal rhetoric that the BJP directs at Muslims and a weak Congress that while seeking our votes is afraid to speak on issues that affect the community,” said Sajid Shaikh, an AIMIM activist from Malegaon.AIMIM’s growthMaharashtra has long offered space for the AIMIM to expand beyond its Hyderabad turf. The party’s earliest and most natural entry point was Marathwada, a region with historical and cultural links to Telangana. Districts such as Jalna, Hingoli, Parbhani, Osmanabad, Beed, Aurangabad, Nanded and Latur were once part of the Nizam’s dominion and continue to share social and political ties with Hyderabad. For many towns in Marathwada, Hyderabad is geographically and culturally closer than Mumbai.This proximity allowed the AIMIM to remain active in local body elections in Marathwada since the 1990s. For years, however, the party struggled to convert its presence into electoral success. That changed in 2012, when the AIMIM won 11 seats in the Nanded Waghala Municipal Corporation elections.The party’s breakthrough came in 2014, when it won two Assembly seats in Maharashtra, one each in Mumbai and Marathwada. In Aurangabad then, the AIMIM emerged as the principal opposition to the BJP-Shiv Sena combine in the municipal corporation, winning 25 seats and pushing the Congress and then undivided NCP to the margins.The AIMIM subsequently joined hands with the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), a partnership that culminated in Imtiaz Jaleel winning the Aurangabad Lok Sabha seat in 2019. Months later, however, the party suffered setbacks in the Assembly elections, losing its seats in Mumbai and Aurangabad Central, though it retained Malegaon Central and registered a surprise win in Dhule. In the 2024 Assembly elections, the AIMIM was reduced to just Malegaon Central.In recent years, internal strains have become more visible. While Asaduddin Owaisi remains the party’s tallest leader nationally and Jaleel its face in Maharashtra, the organisation has seen frequent defections and factional tensions.Critics argue while the party speaks forcefully against the BJP, its presence in multi-cornered contests often splits Opposition votes, indirectly benefiting the ruling party. This concern surfaced sharply during the 2024 elections, when a prominent cleric Maulana Shaikh Khalil-ur-Rahman Sajjad Nomani released a list of preferred candidates, largely from the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and excluding all but two from the AIMIM.most read“It is a party that is operating purely on the personal charisma of Asaduddin Owaisi. Unlike others, it is not a cadre-based party, at least in Maharashtra. Till Muslim youth who are politically conscious see it as a party that is unafraid to speak on issues, this support will continue,” said Nazim Shaikh, an AIMIM activist from Malegaon.For the AIMIM leadership, however, the current civic body results come as a validation of the party’s political positioning in Maharashtra. Leaders argue that a perception of ideological firmness to stand against the BJP has helped the party retain credibility among its core voters.“The way leaders from the Congress and the NCP speak and conduct themselves, there is a public perception that they could, at any point, switch sides and join the BJP. The AIMIM, on the other hand, is seen as a party that will never align with the BJP. That credibility has helped us win seven seats even in a city like Nagpur,” said Jaleel.