By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) celebrates its win in the municipal corporation elections in Uttar Pradesh, the news from Gorakhpur can hardly be categorised as good, given that an independent Muslim candidate–Nadira Khatun–won from Old Gorakhpur Ward number 68.
Nadira’s win becomes more important because this is the same ward where Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister lives and is registered as a voter. On November 22, Yogi Adityanath even cast his vote and hailed for the victory in the locality.
But in the results announced on December 1, Nadira Khatun registered a win with 1,783 votes. BJP’s candidate Maya Tripathi got second place with 1321 votes and lost her deposit to independent Nadira Khatun in a poor voting of 30.51 percent.
Out of total six candidates fighting from this ward, four were Muslims and two candidates were Hindus. The seat was reserved for women corporator, hence all the parties were expecting to lure the female voters towards them.
According to the Gorakhpur-based journalist Manoj Kumar Singh, Nadira Khatun’s win becomes important because she won despite the division of Muslim votes among four Muslim women.
While talking with TwoCircles.net, Nadira Khatun said, “Our win is the answer to the problems persisting in our ward, even when we have corporator, MLA, MP and now CM from BJP. One should look at the condition of lanes and drainages in our ward. We will fulfil our promise to get them fixed.”
Old Gorakhpur is Muslim-dominated locality. In the polls held on November 22, many families reported their names missing from the voters’ list. If local reports to be believed, more than 300 voters name were missing from the voters’ list in the recent municipal elections. What made the situation even more curious was that the name of Mahant Avaidyanath’s – Yogi Adityanath’s Guru – who passed away many years ago, was found on the voter list.
“Even after the fact that this is Muslim-dominated locality and several names were missing from the voter list, we have managed to get the votes from Muslim as well as Hindu voters,” said Khatun.
This was the first electoral attempt by 70-year-old Nadira Khatun, and she did not approach any political party for the ticker, said his son Shamim Ansari, who lost the last municipal elections to BJP with a margin of 64 votes only.
In the recently held assembly election in the state, the locality in and around Old Gorakhpur announced the boycott of polling. The reason behind such announcement was the poor condition of weavers in the locality. However, the people voted after several leaders approached them and promised to take care of the weavers.