* 541 Muslim Lok Sabha MPs between 1952 and 2024
* 329 Muslims among 2176 Rajya Sabha members
* 3,198 Muslims among 60,693 MLAs
* 160 Muslims among 598 MLCs in five Legislative Councils
* Muslim voters dominate in 450 assembly seats
IN the 18 Lok Sabha polls that India has had since 1952, the Muslim community in the world’s largest democracy had seen a total of 541 Members of Parliament, the highest being 49 in 1980, according to a new book by Mohammed Abdul Mannan, At the Bottom of the Ladder: State of the Indian Muslims – https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0GF1Q9R25 – which quantifies Muslim presence in 150 key organisations, including Union ministries, departments, and organisations.
However, the share of the Muslim Lok Sabha MPs in 2024 shrunk to 4.42 per cent, a decline from the previous edition. This had been the second-lowest share since 1952. Muslim representation had remained the weakest since 2014, with only 24 Muslims getting elected from across the country in 2024.
The 18th Lok Sabha has the lowest share of Muslim MPs in six decades. Only ten states/UTs have at least one Muslim MP. Less than five per cent of its members are currently Muslims despite people from the community forming over 15 per cent of the country’s population. In total, there are currently 24 Muslim MPs (4.4 percent) in the Lok Sabha.
Notably, the record low occurred despite a considerable spike in the share of Muslim MPs from the Indian National Congress, the second-biggest party in the current Lok Sabha. The party with the most members in 2024, the BJP, currently has no representatives from the Muslim community.
The decline in the share of Muslim MPs in the Lok Sabha, in the 1990s, coincided with the rise of the BJP, whose total MP tally crossed the 100-mark for the first time in the 10th Lok Sabha (1991-96). India had seen a total of 9,430 Lok Sabha MPs since the first General Elections in 1952.
The world’s third-largest Muslim population, or 14.2 percent of India’s total inhabitants, as per the Census 2011, has witnessed the worst representation of Muslims in every socio-economic domain, and the situation has worsened in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, Legislative Assemblies and Legislative Councils since the 1990s.
Out of 2176 Rajya Sabha members, 329 came from the Muslim community. Out of the 4,123 seats in Legislative Assemblies across the country, Muslim voters dominate in as many as 450 seats. Sixty-five seats across 12 states and two UTs have over 25 per cent Muslim population.
As many as 65 seats have over 25 per cent of Muslim voters. Muslim votes decide the outcome in more than 100 assembly constituencies in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. In Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, 29 districts are Muslim-majority with 137 assembly seats. In Madhya Pradesh, the Muslim vote factor is crucial in at least 22 seats
In Gujarat, 17 assembly seats have significant Muslim voters. There are 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, but only 34 matter to the Muslims. In Jharkhand’s 14 Lok Sabha seats, Muslims matter in only eight unreserved seats. In Bihar, Kishanganj district tops the list with 68 per cent Muslims, Katihar has 43 per cent, Araria has 42 per cent, and Purnia has 38 per cent. Madhubani 26 per cent, Darbhanga 23 per cent, Sitamarhi 21 per cent, and West Champaran 21 per cent.
Life for the 200 million-strong community has remained in a whirlpool of front-paged discrimination in every socio-economic domain since the 1990s. No Muslim representation exists in the Union government since July 2022, a first in history. Muslims, according to the US-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), “face discrimination in employment and education and encounter barriers to achieving wealth and political power.” Out of the total of 60,693 members of Legislative Assemblies (MLAs), Muslims account for only 3198 seats, including 65 women. In the Legislative Councils in five states, 160 out of 598 members were Muslims.
Andhra Pradesh had seen a total of 111 Muslim MLAs out of a total of 3,948. In Assam, between 1951 and 2021, as many as 351 MLAs were Muslims, including six women, out of a total of 1,791. Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Sikkim, and Himachal Pradesh have not seen any Muslim MLAs in their history. Bihar had 326 Muslim MLAs out of 5,146, elected in 17 assembly polls in its history. Chhattisgarh had seen six Muslims out of a total of 470 MLAs till now. Gujarat had seen 39 Muslims among 2,296 MLAs till 2017. In December 2022, the INC’s Imran Khedawala became the only Muslim MLA to win a seat in the house, getting his second consecutive term.
Haryana has seen 43 Muslims among 1,143 MLAs selected in 13 assembly polls till 2019. Jharkhand has had 10 Muslims among 324 MLAs till 2019. Until 2018, Karnataka had 132 Muslims out of a total of 3,059. In the 2023 polls in which Congress elbowed out the BJP from power, the representation of Muslims in the assembly marginally increased compared to the last. As many as nine candidates were elected, compared to seven in 2018. That was a steep fall from the 11 Muslim MLAs elected in 2013. All of them are from the Congress. The JD (Secular) had fielded 23 Muslims out of its 211 candidates, but none won.
BJP did not field any Muslims. From 1957 to 2021, Kerala had seen 338 Muslims out of 2,034 MLAs, of whom two were women. In December 2023, Madhya Pradesh’s 16th Legislative Assembly saw two Muslim MLAs, as had been the case in 2018. Till that year, the state had seen a total of 51 Muslim MLAs. Until 2019, Maharashtra had a total of 115 Muslim MLAs out of a total of 3,684.
Ten Muslim MLAs were elected in the assembly polls in 2024, the same as in 2019, with Congress having three Muslim MLAs, the highest among the political parties. Manipur had seen 38 Muslim MLAs out of 660 until 2017. In the 12th assembly in 2022, one had been a Muslim. A total of 13 Muslim candidates were in the fray. BJP had a lone Muslim candidate, four each were from Congress and NPP, three from JDU, and one from NCP.
Meghalaya had seen 18 Muslims among 600 MLAs till 2018. Nagaland has had two Muslims in history out of 740 MLAs till now. Odisha had 22 Muslim MLAs out of a total of 2,317 until 2019. In June 2024, Sofia Firdous became the state’s first-ever woman Muslim MLA – she is now the only Muslim legislator in the present House. Punjab had seen 13 Muslim MLAs out of a total of 1,763. Rajasthan had seen 81 Muslims out of 2,711 MLAs till 2018. In the 200-member assembly, there are now six Muslim MLAs.
None of the 115 winners from the BJP ticket is a Muslim. All the winning Muslim MLAs belong to the Congress party except Younus Khan, who won as an independent candidate. In 2018, Younus Khan had contested the election on the BJP ticket. The Congress had fielded 15 Muslim candidates, but 10 of them lost. Tamil Nadu had a total of 3,829 MLAs in its history, of whom 93 till now had been Muslims, including a woman.
Telangana had seen 23 Muslims in the three assembly polls that India’s youngest state had held since 2014, with a 119-member House. Tripura had seen 21 Muslims among its 630 MLAs till 2018. In September 2023, Tafazzul Hossain of Tripura became the only Muslim MLA of the BJP in a north-eastern state. Besides him, another Muslim got elected to the House.
Until 2022, Uttar Pradesh had a total of 7,389 MLAs, of whom 628, including seven women, were Muslims. Uttarakhand had seen 13 Muslims among 350 MLAs till now. West Bengal had 655 Muslims, including 24 women, out of a total of 4,855 MLAs. Delhi had seen 37 Muslims among 702 MLAs till 2020. In February 2025, four Muslim candidates made it in the elections. Puducherry had 25 Muslims among 420 MLAs till 2021. In the Legislative Assembly elections held in Jammu and Kashmir in 2024 for the 90-member House, 54 are Muslims.
To read and obtain more data, please visit:
At the Bottom of the Ladder: State of the Indian Muslims – https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0GF1Q9R25
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