In seven constituencies in Delhi Muslims have a decisive influence over the election outcome
Waquar Hasan | Clarion India
NEW DELHI – As Delhi residents prepare to cast their votes in the assembly elections on February 5, significant attention is focused on Muslim voters, who make up approximately 13 per cent of the national capital’s population.
There are seven constituencies in the Union Territory where Muslims hold a decisive influence over the election outcome. These include Okhla, Babarpur, Mustafabad, Seelampur, Matia Mahal, Ballimaran, and Chandni Chowk, where the minority community constitutes over 40 percent of the population. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Indian National Congress, and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) are actively courting voters in these areas, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has once again refrained from fielding a Muslim candidate in Delhi.
Qasim Rasool Ilyas, a prominent Muslim leader and spokesperson of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), is of the opinion that Muslims will vote for a candidate who is in better position of defeating the BJP candidate.
“Muslim voters will basically cast their votes against the BJP. The candidate which would be in a strong positionvagainst the BJP will get the Muslim votes. The issue is not for us that which party will come in power. Whether it’s Congress or the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the role of both of these parties has not been appreciable towards Muslims,” said Ilyas while speaking to Clarion India.
In the past, the seven constituencies which have a large chunk of the Muslim voters were the strongholds of the Congress party. However, the AAP have wrested these areas from the Congress in the last consecutive terms in 2015 and 2020. Congress could not win any of these seats. In fact, the grand old party could not cross double digit of the vote percentage in these constituencies in the last term. In 2020, the AAP won all of the seven seats whereas in 2015, the party gained six of these constituencies with BJP winning Mustafabad.
It will be interesting to see whether the Congress would be able to bring back any of the constituencies in its fold this time. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi kickstarted the election campaign from the Seelampur suggesting party’s efforts to get back its Muslim strongholds.
Ilyas, who is former national president of the Welfare Party of India (WPI), feels that the Muslim voters could have turned from the AAP towards the Congress this time, had the grand old party fielded strong candidates.
“There could be change in the trends of the Muslim voters, had the Congress party fielded strong candidates. The way the party is contesting the elections appears that it does not want to win,” he said.
Some of the policies and politics adopted by the AAP has angered the members of the Muslims community. The apathetic behaviour of the government towards the communal violence erupted in the northeast Delhi in 2020, then chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s statement putting a blame on the Tablighi Jamaat for the outbreak of Covid-19 in the national capital, the silence of the party over the hate crimes and anti-Muslim policies adopted by the BJP are some of the crucial issues raising concerns among the minority community about the AAP.
The All India Majlis-e- Itthadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi termed AAP’s national convener Kejriwal and Prime Minister Narendra Modi “two sides of the same coin”.
“Modi and Kejriwal are like brothers, two sides of the same coin. Both have emerged from the RSS ideology one from its ‘shakha’ and the other from its institutions,” he said, while campaigning for party’s Okhla candidate Shifa-ur-Rehman in Jamia Nagar on Thursday.
Ilyas accused the AAP government of ignoring the Muslim-dominated constituencies in the developmental works. Most of these constituencies have unauthorised colonies making their houses vulnerable to the demolition drive. The AAP did not make any efforts to get authorised these colonies. Also, there is a lack of basic amenities such as the system of portable water and cleanliness in these areas.
However, this correspondent, who has spoken to some of the voters of two of the Muslim-dominated constituencies, found that Muslims are still largely supporting the AAP due to the welfare schemes implemented by the Delhi government.
