By Shafeeq Rahman,
The election process has just completed in politically India’s most important state Uttar Pradesh after a long two months exercise. Samajwadi Party (SP)mainly supported by Muslimshas emerged as the single largest party with clear majority to form the government in the state by defeating its main rival BahujanSamaj Party (BSP). The election results have also come with pleasure of more Muslim representation in the state legislative assembly.
The number of Muslim MLAs has increased to 69 while it was 56 in the last assembly election (2007). The highest number of Muslim MLAs has come from SP (43) followed by BSP (16), Congress (4), Peace party (3), QuamiEkta Dal (2) and Ittehad-E-Millat Council (1). The Muslim representation in the 403-seatassembly is now 17.12%, which is now close to Muslim population share(18.50%) in the total population of the state.
However, if we analyze the latest Muslim representation district-wise, some startling facts will emerge. In some districts where Muslims have notable share in population, no Muslim candidate has got elected in this 2012 assembly polls. For example, the population of Muslims in Saharanpur is around 40 percent but not a single Muslim candidate has got elected from the district while in some other districts like Azamgarh, Muslims secured more seats (4) than their percentage share in population (15.07%). There are 10 assembly seats in Azamgarh.
Moradabad is at top with 6 Muslim MLAs out of 9 seats in the district.
The given table is formulated to gauge Muslim representation across the districts in Uttar Pradesh in terms of population share and their representation in state assembly:
Note: Districts and ACs are classified as per latest delimitation and population as per 2001 census
(ShafeeqRahman is a professional researcher on India-centric socio-economic and political databases. He can be contacted at [email protected])