By TwoCircles Staff Reporter,
Chandigarh: In the overwhelming saffron surge in the 90-member house, Haryana returned just three Muslim MLAs this election, result for which was announced on Sunday.
Naseem Ahmed (Indian National Lok Dal) beat Independent Mamman Khan to win the Ferozpur Jhirka seat by 3245 votes; at Nuh, Zakir Hussain (INLD) defeated nearest rival Aftab Ahmed of INC by 32796 votes and Rahish Khan, an independent candidate, won the Punahana seat by a margin of just 3141 votes over his nearest rival Mohammed Ilyas of the INLD.
This number is down from five MLAs in 2009. The BJP won 47, the INC 15 while there are as many as 5 independents. The Haryana Janhit Congress won two seats while Shiromani Akali Dal and Samajwadi Party won just one seat each.
There were 27 other Muslim candidates, none of whom could make the mark.
In 2009, Akram Khan of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had defeated Subhash Chand at Jagadhri; Naseem Khan from Ferozpur Jhirka and Mohammed Ilyas from Punahana had won on INLD tickets; Aftab Ahmed of Congress had won the Mewat seat while Congress’ Dharambir had won the Sohna seat.