By TCN Staff Reporter,
Ahmedabad: Wankaner is one of the only two constituencies in Gujarat where Muslim candidates have registered a victory. Mohammed Javed Peerzada won Wankaner Assembly seat with a slightly comfortable margin of 5200 votes. He got 59,000 votes while his nearest rival of BJP pulled 53,700 votes.
The Peerzada religious Sufi saint family has been holding the power threads of Wankaner from the last four decades. Javed Peerzada’s father Abdul Peerzada won the seat in 1971, by defeating then Jan sangh poster boy Keshubhai Patel who later became the CM of Gujarat.
Mohammed Javed Peerzada
Since then, for Peerzada family there was no looking back. After the death of Abdul Peerzada his sons Manzoor Peerzada and Khurshid Peerzada won the seat through 1980s and in 1995. When the baton of family politics was handed over to Javed Peerzada, a school principal in 2002, it was a troubling period; in the communal divide atmosphere, he couldn’t save the family seat.
But in 2007 Peerzada again bounced back and defeated BJP’s candidate with 18,000 votes. Wakaner has 27% Muslim population, but interesting fact about Peerzada family is that they have enjoyed the support of local Hindu community members.
At a time when the Muslim candidates of the Congress Party stumbled even in minority dominated constituencies, Javed Peerzada’s victory comes as booster.
Ilyas Khan Pathan, a young journalist with Guajarati daily from Wakaner said that Peerzada’s main force comes from his simplicity, his availability to the general public, and his non-discriminated development work.
TCN tried to contact Javed Peerzada to get his reaction on his election victory, but he was occupied in his vijay rath yatra in his constituency.
TCN series on Gujarat elections