The All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen, or AIMIM, won a seat for the first time in the Bihar Assembly on Thursday after its candidate in Kishanganj, Qamrul Hoda, defeated Sweety Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party by 10,204 votes.

The Kishanganj Assembly seat fell vacant after Javed Alam of the Congress was elected to Parliament in May. It was one of the 51 Assembly constituencies across India where bye-polls were held on Monday.

The AIMIM, led by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, had contested from six constituencies in Bihar in the 2015 state elections, but failed to win any. The party fielded its state chief Akhtarul Iman in the Lok Sabha election from Kishanganj earlier this year, but he finished third.

The AIMIM has two members in the Lok Sabha, seven seats in the Telangana Assembly. In Maharashtra, the party had won two constituencies in the 2014 elections. It was leading in three seats at one point but failed to increase its tally as it ended up with Malegaon Central and Dhule City.

“We are also humbled by the trust people of Malegaon and Dhule have placed in us,” Owaisi tweeted. “Inshallah, we’ll not disappoint.”

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