Missing prior strategy reduces Muslims’ representation in Assembly

October 21, 2014

By A. Mirsab, TwoCircles.net,

Mumbai: Maharashtra Muslims have collectively managed to send total 9 MLAs of their community to the assembly for the next five years which was made clear on Sunday after the counting of votes for 15th October elections in the state. Earlier there were 10 MLAs from the community belonging to different parties.

Muslims who form 12-14% of the Maharashtra population and figures to be approximately 15% of the voters have shown great enthusiasm during this times’ election, especially youths, but due to their missing prior collective strategy in choosing candidates of their community and aggregating their community votes have resulted into further damage to their already under representation at the political forum.

TCN file photo

This happened despite AIMIM , who have stunned the state with a magical entry by sending two MLAs to the assembly. Political observers believe that there could never be such an opportunity for Muslims in election to win when all the political parties had no prior alliance during election increasing the scope of division of votes paving way for the Muslims if the community united vote for a single candidate.

M.M. Kamble (58), a political observer says, “I have been keenly observing last four elections in the state and have found that Muslims never had a strategy in hand before going to the elections. I suppose if they (Muslims) would have had a specific plan this election then their number would have drastically increased due to division of votes among different parties”.

This is indeed true because no one would have ever imagined that a Muslim candidate could win from Byculla constituency which has mixed community. Adv. Waris Yusuf Pathan of AIMIM secured 25316 votes and won from this constituency with the margin of nearly 1500 votes. It became possible because MIM managed to unit Muslim votes, to some extent, in the region urging to vote for Pathan although there were 3 more Muslim candidates who were in the fray.

Another main reason of his vicotry was the division of total 86635 votes amongst candidates of BJP, INC, MNS and Shiv Sena supported ABS. If there would have been alliance between SS and BJP, the seat would have easily gone to it and would have won against Pathan by a margin of more than 15000.

But the Muslims in Bhiwandi are mostly affected in this election as both the seats of East and West have gone to SS and BJP respectively due to lack of ‘strategic’ voting by Muslims there. Both these seats were won in 2009 by SP Muslim candidates.

This election, Bhiwandi East seat is won by SS who secured 33541 votes where as total votes of 8 Muslim candidates in the fray from the same constituency summed up to 53965. Despite dense populations Muslims not only lose this seat but also a highest performing candidate of their community stood fourth in the constituency.

Same situation is reflected in Bhiwandi West constituency. The seat is won by BJP candidate by securing 42483 votes although overall votes of 5 Muslim contestants in the fray from the constituency add to 60901 votes.

Depressed with losing the constituencies to BJP and SS, Muhammad Naved (27 yrs), a resident of Bhiwandi said, “Indeed we Muslims have to draw a prior strategy before elections to unite Muslim votes under a single banner else we would continue to degrade our representation in the assembly”.

Irritated Sadiq, a friend of Naved says, “No Muslim in the region ever thought that we would lose this seat to BJP or Sena. We, the Muslims (of Bhiwandi) must be blamed for five years for providing easy way for saffron party in the area.”

Nawab Malik, a former minister of NCP who has dramatically lost this election from Anushaktinagar constituency by a mere margin of 1000 votes has no one else to blame than himself as he did not consolidated 3 other Muslim contestants who ate his 5800 votes which got distributed amongst them.

A Muslim NCP candidate from Pathri , Mr. Abdullah Khan Durrani ranked 3rd with 46304 votes losing to an independent candidate by over 20000 votes. Durrani’s supporters are contended with 3rd position as he ranked over Shiv Sena candidate with a difference of more than 10000 votes.

Munaf Khan, supporter of Durrani said, “We are happy that we are positioned above Sena candidate. Full credit goes to Muslims of the area who supported Khan Sahab”.

Amin Patel of INC, a former minister, managed to retain Mumbadevi constituency despite 12 other Muslim contestants battling from the same seat. The division of Muslim votes amongst these 13 Muslim candidates brought BJP candidate very near to Amin Patel although he lost with the margin of 8000 votes.

Similar situation appeared in Mankhurd-Shivaji Nagar constituency from where 9 Muslim candidates were aspiring to become an MLA. Although here SP Maharashtra chief Abu Asim Azmi won but Shiv Sena candidate ranked second differing with 10000 votes. SS could reach second position here due to division of 81236 votes casted upon these 9 Muslim contestants.

Moin Mukhtar of MIM who lost to Shiv Sena’s Hemant Patil by 11000 votes could have equaled him if there would not have been 20 other Muslim candidates fighting on the same seat.

Tabash Shaikh (24 years), MIM supporter from Nanded said, “We tried very hard to combine Muslim votes (for Moin Akhtar ) but there were many Muslim candidates. It’s foolish (that) Muslims are infighting and wasting their votes at a time when we extremely need our representatives in political circle”.

If there would not be debut of AIMIM in Maharashtra the Muslim MLAs would have further decreased by two as there was little chance for any other Muslim contestant from Aurangabad Central and Byculla to win from the respective constituencies.

The thrilling debutant AIMIM has helped to integrate Muslim votes to some extent resulting into two win from unexpected regions dominated by Congress and Sena earlier. MIM fetched overall 489614 votes making 0.9 percent of overall votes counted on Sunday.

In future elections, if MIM or all other Muslim leadership in the state for that purpose could work in the same direction of combining approximate 15% Muslim votes in the state then perceptibly Muslims could send more MLAs from their community to assembly without even relying upon other voters.

Mayawati led BSP fought from all 288 constituencies without offering support to any party and gathered 1191749 (2.3%) votes – thrice the number of votes secured by AIMIM, but could not elect a single candidate, thereby simply wasting their votes.

Hence there is a much scope for Muslim leadership of finding Dalit voters’ support in the state by convincing and drawing a common minimum points with Dalit leadership prior election else Dalits will continue to traditionally vote for BSP candidate irrespective of his ability to win or represent people at the larger forum.