By Faisal Fareed, TwoCircles.net
In general parlance it is often stated in Uttar Pradesh that many Muslims lose their seats narrowly due to a split in Muslim votes.
The phenomenon is not new and was visible in the 2012 assembly polls. An analysis of the election results shows that Muslim candidates lost on as many as 26 assembly seats due to division of votes among their own community candidates.
Some of the seats were lost narrowly-by mere 123 votes-while in some seats Muslim candidates occupied all the spots from second to seventh position while other candidates emerged as the winner due to splitting of votes.
Among these 26 seats where Muslim candidates in total polled more votes than the winner, BJP won 15 seats while SP won six seats; BSP won three and Congress won two seats.
For example, in district Saharanpur’s Nakur assembly seat, Dharam Singh Saini of BSP emerged winner with 89,187 votes. On second place was Imran Masood of Indian National Congress who polled 84,623 losing by a margin of 4,564 votes. The division of votes occurred with Firoz Aftab of SP on third place and getting 29,503 votes.
At Saharanpur Nagar seat, Raghav Lakhan Pal of BJP emerged winner with 5,170 and won the seat by 12,626 votes with Saleem Ahmed, INC at the second place with 72,544 votes. Here also Mazahir Hasan, SP, with 19,755 votes was on fourth place thus affecting the result decisively.
In Saharanpur seat, Jagpal of BSP won after getting 80,670 votes and defeating Choudhary Abdul Wahid of INC who got 63,557 votes with a margin of 17113 votes. But the result was affected as Sarfaraz Khan of SP came third with 43,018 votes.
In Gangoh seat, Pradeep Kumar of INC won after getting 65,149 votes while Shagufta Khan of BSP with 41,110 votes on third place and Nahid Hasan, an independent candidate with 33,288 emerged at the fourth place.
In Kairana, BJP’s high profile leader Hukum Singh won after getting 80,293 votes but here two Muslim leaders were on second and third place–Anwar Hasan, BSP polled 60,750 votes and Ayub Jang, SP polled 21,267 votes.
At Thana Bhawan seat where BJP’s Suresh Rana won after getting 53,719 votes, Ashraf Ali Khan RLD polled 53,454 votes thus the margin was only 265 votes. Ironically on third place was another Muslim leader Abdul Waris Khan BSP getting 50,001 votes.
At Bijnor, the story was repeated again with Kunwar Bhartendu Singh from the BJP getting 68,969 votes and Mahboob BSP getting 51,133 votes. BJP won by 17,836 votes while Shahnawaz Rana RLD easily secured 47,462 votes but the seat was lost.
At Noorpur it was Lokendra Singh BJP who got 47566 votes and won with Mohd Usman BSP getting 42093 votes. The margin was 5473 votes and Qutubuddin SP spoiled it by getting 34798 votes on third place.
In Asmoli seat, Pinki Singh of SP who is reported to be relative of Mulayam Singh was winner after she got 73873 votes after defeating Aqeelur rehman Khan BSP who got 47484 votes. The margin was huge 26389 votes but there were two other Muslim candidates Asrar Ahmed INC with 23855 on fourth place and Yasin Ahmed of Mahaan Dal with 16338 on fifth place who were responsible for splitting of votes.
The most high profile case was Meerut where BJP’s former state president Laxmikant Bajpai emerged victorious with 68154. The splitting of votes can be gauged from the fact that from second spot to sixth place there were Muslim candidates dividing the votes. The second place was of Rafiq Ansari SP getting 61,876 who lost by a margin of 6,278 votes. He was followed by Mohd Yusuf Qureshi of INC getting 31,895 and Salim Ansari BSP with 13,164 votes.
No lesson was learnt and in Meerut South seat Ravindra Bhadan BJP got 71,584 votes and won with a margin of 9,784 votes. On second position was Haji Rashid Akhlaq BSP with 61,800 votes followed by Aadil SP with 49,103 votes and then Manzoor Saifi RLD with 25,150 votes.
Unexpectedly the same thing happened in Dholana seat where Dharmesh Singh Tomar SP got 59,150 and won with a margin of 9,339 votes. The second spot was of Aslam BSP with 49,811 votes and there were other Muslim candidate Basid of Peace Party with 29,026 on fourth place and Kunwar Ayub Khan RLD with 18,423 votes on fifth place.
Most narrow win which BJP got due to division of votes was in Sikandarabad seat where its candidate Vimla Solanki got 45,799 and won with a margin of 123 votes only. On second place was Saleem Akhtar Khan BSP with 45,676 votes while closely following him was Badrul Islam SP with 43,535 votes. Both of them lost despite getting over forty thousand votes each.
In Agra South, it was on expected lines. BJP’s Yogendra Upadhyay won after getting 74,324 votes. The margin was 22,960 votes. Now from second to fifth position, there were Muslim candidates. Second was Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutto of BSP with 51,364 votes, third was Nazir Ahmed of INC with 39,962 votes and fourth was Sareef Usmani of SP with 13,408 votes.
BJP also easily won Firozabad seat where Manish Aseeja got 74,878 and defeated SP’s Azim Bhai who got 72,863 votes. The difference was only 2,015 votes and another Muslim candidate Khalid Naseer BSP got 51,790 votes and was on third place.
At Kasganj seat, it was Manpal Singh SP who got 48,535 votes and won and second position went to Hasratullah Sherwani of BSP with 38,356 votes while on fourth position there was another Muslim candidate Saeed Mustafa Sherwani of INC with 21,656 votes while the margin was only 10,179 votes.
At Bareilly Cantt, Rajesh Agarwal of BJP got 51,893 won while on second and third place were Fahim Sabir Ansari of SP got 32,944 votes and Anees Ahmed Khan of Ittehad-e-Millat Council with 24,353 votes.
At Shahjahanpur. BJP’s senior leader Suresh Kumar Khanna got 81,581 and won easily. Here also Muslim secured all positions from second place to fifth place. The tally is Tanveer Khan SP 65,403, Mohd Aslam Khan BSP 19,936, Nawab Faizan Ali Khan INC 6,055 and Mohd Saleem CPI 1,791 votes respectively.
At Mohammadi seat Bala Prasad Awasthi of BSP won with 57,737 votes. On second spot was Imran Ahmed SP 46,393 votes followed by Ashfaq Ullah Khan, INC getting 22,014 votes and fourth place.
In Sitapur, Radheyshyam Jaiswal of SP won and got 58,370 votes. Again on second place was Ayub Khan of BSP got 48,702 votes and Haji Jalees Ahmed INC on fourth place with 25,596 votes.
On Kanpur Cantt seat Raghunandan Bhadauria BJP won after he got 42,251
votes. Here Muslims secured positions from second place till seventh. Among them Mohd Hasan Roomi of SP got 33,243 votes was third with Abdula Mannan Ansari of INC got 31,122 votes and Sohil Akhtar Ansari BSP 26,205 votes on third and fourth place respectively.
In Rudauli, the seat was won narrowly by BJP with a margin of only 941 votes.
BJP candidate Ramchandra Yadav got 61,173 votes while Muslim candidates were from second to fourth place. The second spot was occupied by Abbas Ali Zaidi of SP with 60,232 votes. He was followed by Shamshad Khan BSP 34,354 and Muneer Ahmed Khan INC got 13,574 votes.
In Nanpara seat, Madhuri Verma INC won after she got 46,987 votes while the runner up was Waris Ali of BSP got 42,665 votes. The role of the spoil sport was played by
Ramjan Khan of Peace Party who with 18,554 votes was on fourth place.
At Kaiser Ganj seat, Mukut Bihari of BJP won after getting 45,262 votes. Here on third place was Khalid Khan of BSP with 37,528 votes followed by Yunus Saleem, an independent candidate with 20,731 votes and Sayyub Ali INC with 16,174 votes.
Similarly on Bhinga seat, Indrani Devi SP got 65,365 and won. Here on second place was Mohd Aslam INC with 58,538 votes followed by A Raheem Khan on fourth place of BSP with 22,114 votes.
In Gainsri seat, Shiv Pratap Yadav SP got 56,744 and won easily but the runner up was Alauddin BSP 33,044 votes and on fourth place was Fida Mohammad INC with 23,317 votes.