Candidate loses deposit in Bandra (E) assembly by-poll in Mumbai
By Nivedita Bhardwaj, TwoCircles.net,
Mumbai: Barely six months after it marked a spectacular debut in Maharashtra’s political scenario – two seats in the assembly polls in 2014 – the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Musalimeen (AIMIM) on Wednesday received a major setback to its expansion plans when its candidate for the Bandra (E) by-poll ended a distant third position.
From lack of local leadership to no clear agenda, from strong opposition parties joining hands to less voter turnout, analyst came forward with scores of reasons for the MIM’s loss. If not a win, a close second position would have meant good prospects for the party that is looking at fighting municipal polls across Maharashtra in coming months/year.
(Credit: HT)
The result declared on Wednesday showed that MIM’s Raja Rehbar Khan polled 15,050 votes compared to 23,976 votes in October 2014 election. Shiv Sena’s Trupti Sawant, wife of late Prakash (Bala) Sawant, whose death had necessitated the by-poll, came out a clear winner with 52,711 votes while Congress’ candidate Narayan Rane polled 32,703 votes.
In 2014, Bala Sawant had won the seat with 41,388 votes – his wife got more votes this time than him – and BJP’s Krishna Dhondi Parkar had polled 25,791 votes. MIM’s Khan had polled 23,976, much ahead of Congress (12,229), NCP (9,725), MNS (5,401) and the BSP (1,891).
It was a prestigious election for all three candidates: for Shiv Sena, because party chief Uddhav Thackeray’s residence Matoshree is part of the constituency and it had taken as a challenge to reign in Rane, who had deserted the party after enjoying CM’s post; for Congress, because it was hoping to regain some lost pride after a clear debacle in 2014 polls and had put up a heavyweight Rane, the former chief minister in Sena’s seat. For MIM, good performance would have meant a larger footprint in the capital of the state, where the Hyderabad-based party leader Asaduddin Owaisi is looking forward to expand in days to come.
Bandra (E) has a total voter roll of 2,65,050, of which 1,46,279 are male voters. Voting percentage this time – voting held on April 11 – was a mere 38.86 % as against 47 % in 2014 and 45 % in 2009.
In October 2014 when MIM sprang up on Maharashtra’s political scene, most Muslim voters in Muslim-dominated seats migrated to the new party, apparently fascinated by Owaisi’s straight talk. Strong anti-incumbency against Congress and NCP, which helped more to BJP and Shiv Sena, had also helped MIM consolidate its vote share across 24 constituencies that it fielded its candidate. Even in Bandra (E), MIM was able to wean away Congress, NCP and BSP’s votes.
But six months down the line, voter’s fascination, especially in Mumbai, seems to have waned for Owaisi and his party. Bandra has a mixed demography with three distinct clusters. One is a government colony, another Muslim-dominated areas such as Behrampada and third the slum clusters. Most slum clusters too have a sizeable number of Muslims too but they are mostly recent migrants from Uttar Pradesh or Bihar.
MIM was banking on both types of voters apart from a few dalit votes from the constituency, again mostly from slum clusters. Desperate Congress had fielded a strong candidate such as Rane, which ensured a heavy turn-around of voters to their traditional choice abandoning the new found love. But a major setback was the Shiv Sena-BJP putting up a joint show.
“Above all, the party did not prepare for the polls properly. Since the 2014 assembly elections, the party did no work here. There was no local leadership. Mumbai president of the party is from Hyderabad. Even the posters during the campaign showed only Owaisi brothers and no one else,” said a source.
Clearly the party’s ‘Jai Bheem Jai Meem’ (read dalit-Muslim sharing) formula did not work here unlike in rest of Maharashtra, especially in Marathwada. A party spokesperson offered a weak explanation while talking to ABPMaza, a Marathi news channel, “The voting percentage was too low. Most slum dwellers that are daily wage earners did not go for voting. That was our loss.”
Giving a twist to how its Bandra performance will not matter much for the MIM, an analyst observed: “MIM is not much bothered about how many seats it gets in Maharashtra now. It is using Maharashtra, especially the north Indian migrants in Mumbai, as a foothold to reach out to northern Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which would be going to polls in next two years.”
Imtiaz Jalil, MIM’s MLA from Aurangabad (Central), however, offered a more palatable reason. “We were the only party fighting alone. We had against us four stronger bigger parties fighting together (BJP-Shiv Sena and Congress-NCP). Last time we got 22,000 votes and this time we got 15,000. We wanted to see how we perform.”
Jalil also blamed media, especially the local news channels for over-hyping Akbaruddin Owaisi’s inflammatory speech issue. “There is just one case against Akbar and media keeps harping on that. Election Commission is there to take care of it, it is going on in the High Court. Why unnecessarily hype it again and again,” he said indicating that this media hype might be a possible reason for MIM candidate’s poor performance in the Sena stronghold.
There were allegation against MIM – especially voiced by Congress and NCP – that Owaisi had a tacit understanding with the Hindutva forces to cut down on ‘secular’ votes.
For Shiv Sena, MIM’s presence was important in view of the fact that both parties are pitched against each other directly at Aurangabad Municipal election few days away. “Even some Muslims from Behrampada have voted for Shiv Sena. This is a clear signal to Owaisi. He is only using Muslims only as vote bank,” Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray told media persons.
A political observer said, “Bandra by-poll result has shown that Muslims and Congress have a husband-wife like relationship. They may fight, go out, have an extra-marital fling (read MIM or pseudo-secular parties) but at the end of the day, they are back together each time.”
But Jalil did not lose hope. Refuting that MIM had any understanding with any party, he said, “We are not bothered with what Congress says or for that matter what BJP says. We had decided to field our candidate here (Bandra-E), still we are drawing flak, had we not put up a candidate, even then we would have drawn criticism.”
“We are basically looking at a new identity and we are not into conventional politics. We look at Congress and NCP or even at Shiv Sena and BJP in the same way. We are here to stay,” Jalil told IBN Lokmat.
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