By M Reyaz and Saiyed Danish, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: In the Okhla constituency, which consists of 60% of Muslim vote share and is home to Muslims in the capital, more than any other minority hub in the city, a gruelling electoral battle over issues ranging from nationally controversial to locally multifaceted is the promise of the hour.
With 11 Muslim candidates out of 18, the battle for the Okhla constituency is wide open.
Sitting MLA Asif Mohammad Khan of the Congress, who last time won on RJD ticket, is facing huge anti-incumbency. He won last time on anti-Congress rhetoric, and is hence finding it hard to explain to his voters why he joined the Congress.
“I cannot betray my people I have so long stood for. I have joined Congress party for better reach within the government and I will use the clout of Sandeep and Sheila Dikshit to ensure that the innocent boys get justice,” he is heard saying at most gatherings.
Sitting MLA and Congress candidate Asif Mohammad Khan.
He is facing the biggest threat from Shoaib Danish, who is contesting on JDU ticket. Danish is a councillor from Zakir Nagar on Congress ticket and was considered close to MP Sandeep Dikshit and a favourite for the ticket. But he joined JDU as Asif Mohammad Khan, who had joined party just months ago was given the party ticket.
Danish, however, maintains that he did not want to contest elections but he was “approached by the people and the party (JDU)” as they considered him to be the only hope for change.
“I will work hard to change the bad image of Muslims in the country as all other parties have only used the minority for their vested interests,” he told TCN.
Host of Bihar JUD leaders, including CM Nitish Kumar, Rajya Sabha MP Sabir Ali, Mohammad Salam, Bihar State President of the Minority Cell, among others campaigned for Shoaib Danish on Saturday evening.
Danish told TCN that whenever he tried to bring development in his area through Flood Department and MCD fund but the incumbent MLA stopped his work after he had won. He also lashed out at the Okhla MLA for provoking Muslims and making their case. He said that he never raised any question in Vidhan Sabha for them and did theatrics like praying on the grave of Atif Ameen, who was killed in the infamous Batla House police shootout, but nothing was done after that.
JDU candidate from Okhla Shoaib Danish with Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and JDU Rajya Sabha MP Sabir Ali.
Amanatullah Khan, the candidate from Lok Janshakti Party is another potent candidate, who was seen at the fore-front every time there was some issue in the locality. For over a year now, he had set up camps helping residents to get register for the voters’ list, to get AADHAR card, ration cards, etc.
He tells TCN, “All other Muslim candidates are already flop as they have failed to represent the community properly.”
“They don’t talk about issues. They are only crowd pullers and care for wining by whatever means possible. They never talk about the menace created by Delhi government’s neighbourhood criteria in education because of which kids do not get admission. Our party wants to abolish this discriminatory arrangement first thing after I win,” he adds.
LJP candidate from Okhla, Amanatullah Khan with his supporters.
Khan goes on to say, “There is hardly any good school in the area barring a few like Jamia and Cambridge. There are 196 good schools which take 30,000 thousand new students every year in which Muslims could be counted on fingertips. Education has to be imparted to all.”
Besides issues of water and sewer, Amanatullah Khan had famously staged hunger strike against the arrests of Muslim youths in the name of terror and extensively protested against the unavailability of lands for graveyards for Muslims.
“In the case of terror issue, D.K. Basu guidelines should be followed which says that police should be in uniform, have arrest warrants and register an FIR first before the arrest,” he points out.
He is not worried by the fact that LJP does not remain a strong party in Bihar anymore while JDU on whose symbol Shoaib Danish, is contesting the election is quite influential because of being in power.
The young leaders believes that only he has the moral right to get voters’ mandate since he has always stood with them.
“I think I have some competition with BSP and BJP candidates only,” he says confidently.
BSP’s candidate Brahma Singh and BJP’s candidate Dhir Singh Bhiduri are also contesting from the seat which has about 40% Hindu votes including considerable Gujjar and Chaudhary vote bank from areas like Madanpur Khadar.
In an elections that has garnered maximum news for the “wave” of the Aaam Aadmi Party, AAP’s candidate Irfanullah Khan, too is believed to be drawing fair number of votes of total 1.10 lakh votes.
Irfanullah lives in Jamia Nagar and traces his political career back to his days of being President of Aligarh students’ union, serving Lok Dal and Janata Dal in 1990s as General Secretary.
“I am active in Okhla for many years now. In 2007, I was a member of Jamia Nagar Coordination Committee. I addressed people grievances by making political reassure when a quarrel had led to the burning of the Okhla police station. This organization was named as Delhi State Coordination Committee in 2013,” he chronicles when asked about his relative ‘inactive’ participation.
“This time around, we have raised the issue of regularizing of Muslim colonies, illegal detention of Muslim youths and admission for Muslim kids in nursery schools,” he counts.
While rubbishing the lofty claims of his rivals aiming for a big pie, he says that BJP has thoroughly failed as an opposition and the anti-incumbency against Congress in the area is but evident. “Congress party’s campaign to malign us and call us a tentacle of BJP has now back fired on it. They only have the symbol of hand while it is we who are lending hands towards the poor,” he claims.
On the problem of water shortage, he said that his party’s agenda is to ensure that economically weaker section should get 700 litres of water as water is in abundance and free but there are water mafias operating in the area which earn fat by selling same water for lakhs of rupees.
He reasserts that people have already chosen him as he did not seek popularity overnight by just putting up hoardings on roadside or igniting religious sentiments for votes.
Besides these, Samajwadi party candidate Amiruddin, AIUML and some other candidates from smaller parties or independents are trying their luck in the coming elections. Since Muslims votes are bound to get sliced between half a dozen Muslim candidates, both the BSP and BJP are hoping to clinch victory, although due to considerable ‘Bihari votes’ and the visit of Nitish Kumar, Danish appears to be a dark horse.