By a Staff Writer
Lucknow: The intense polarization of votes along communal lines has led to representation of Muslims in 403-member UP Assembly dipping to 26, an all-time low. Of these, 18 are from Samajwadi Party, six belong to Bahujan Samaj Party and two from the Congress Party. A large number of Muslim candidates fielded by SP and BSP were placed second and third, and second as well as third in a large number of constituencies. In Uttarakhand, only two Muslim members could be elected to the 70-member Assembly in Uttarakhand, i.e., Nizamuddin from Mangalur and Mohammad Furqan from Peeran Claire.
Here is the list of Muslim MLAs in Uttar Pradesh:
Samajwadi Party: Total 18 elected: Mahboob Ali (Amroha), Abrar Ahmed (Asauli), Md. Rizwan (Kundari), Nahid Hassan (Kairana), Nafees Ahmed (Gopalpur), Naseer Khan (Chamarwa), Nawabjan (Thakurdwara), Taslim Ahmed (Najibabad), Alam Badee (Nizamabad), Mohd. Faheem (Ballari), Yasser Shah (Metra), Ikram Qureshi (Moradabad), Azam Khan (Rampur), Abdullah Azam s/o-Azam Khan (Swar), Md. Rehan (Lucknow Cantt), Md. Ramzan (Shrawasthi), Iqbal Mahmood (Sambhal), Irfan Solanki (Sesa Mau).
Congress Party: Suhail Akhtar (Kanpur Cantt), Masood Akhtar (Saharanpur Dehat).
Bahujan Samaj Party: Syeda Khatoon (Domariaganj), Aslam Chowdhury (Dholana), Md. Mujtaba (Pratap Pur), Mohammad Aslam (Bhanga), Mukhtar Ansari (Mau), and Guddu Jamali (Mubarakpur).
Several seats were lost by secular parties due to multiple Muslim candidates being in the fray. For instance, the Chandpur seat was won by the BJP by defeating three candidates. BJP’s Kamlesh Saini obtained 92,000 votes while Md. Iqbal of BSP received 56,000 votes, SP’s Md. Arshad 36,000 votes and Congress’s Sherbaz Khan 6,000. Similar was the situation in Burhapur seat where BJP’s Sushanth Kumar got 78,000 votes, Congress’s Hussain Ahmed 68,000, BSP’s Fahad Yazdani 50,000 votes.
In Deoband (Saharanpur district), BJP’s Kunwar Brajesh bagged 1,02,000 votes. His opponent Majid Ali of SP received 72,000 and BSP’s Muawiya Ali obtained 55,000 votes. Kanth and Gonda went the BJP way in a similar contest. However, in Khalilabad seat, BJP’s Digvijay Narain could win the seat with mere 72,000 votes. His three Muslim opponents Mashoor Alam Chowdhury (56,000), Dr. Ayub of Peace Party 42,000) and Javeed Ahmed of SP (28,000) together polled 126,000 votes.
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