By Saiyed Danish, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: The superimposed image of Delhi as the highest seat of political power in India lures many regional parties based outside Delhi to throw their hats in the ring to test their mettle to show rivals back home that the javelin of their long-range ambitions has now brought Delhi it in their ambit. Apart from JDU, LJP, Samajwadi Party and BSP, this assembly election, which proved to be an epic in its spell-bounding verdict which snatched Delhi from Congress and offered a hung assembly in return, also witnessed the participation of South-based SDPI and AIUML but it was a party hailing from the outskirts of Gorakhpur in Eastern Uttar Pradesh which almost lived up to its expectations.
Peace Party which was formed by Dr. Ayyub claims to be a championing the cause of minority and marginalized sections of the Indian society. 11 of their 14 candidates in Delhi were Muslims.
In the category of those small, Muslim-leadership parties which make dent in the mainstream parties’ Muslim vote bank (Congress in Delhi’s case), the performance of Peace Party cannot be simply ignored. (See table 1.0 for Peace party’s overall performance)
TOP SIX PEACE PARTY CANDIDATES’ PERFORMANCE IN DELHI STATE ASSEMBLY POLLS 2013
Candidate Name | Constituency | Votes Secured | Position Secured | Total candidates contested |
Furkhan | Babarpur | 10017 | 4rth | 12 |
Master Sher Khan | Mustafabad | 9478 | 4rth | 14 |
Rajkumar Sharma | Kirari | 1486 | 5th | 19 |
Nafis Ahmad | Gandhinagar | 1193 | 4rth | 12 |
Musarrat Ali | Okhla | 1081 | 8th | 19 |
Dharm Raj Singh | Gokalpur | 1034 | 6th | 13 |
The best fight was put by Furkhan who contested from Babarpur assembly seat. Out of six Muslim candidates who contested from this seat, Furkhan’s performance is second only to Zakir Khan’s performance who secured 29,673 votes. Similar show was put up by Master Sher Khan who contested from Mustafabad and secured 9478 votes and stood 4rth. Nafis Ahmad is the third candidate from Peace Party who managed to secure 4rth position. He contested from Gandhinagar constituency polling 1193 votes.
At least in these three constituencies, Peace Party almost reached at the gates of the colosseum which was reserved only for the main battles of the state. In other seats, however, there rank gradually dipped to less important figures but mentionable are Rajkumar Sharma’s performance in Kirari from where Javed Akhlaqui, the lone SDPI also contested. Where the former secured 1486 votes, Javed gather only 274 in his favour.
Musarrat Ali from Okhla also gave a good fight and ranked above seven other Muslim candidates which included the name of Khurram Anis Omar, Delhi state chief of All India Union Muslim League.
While the Aam Aadmi Party reaps the best harvest of anti-incumbency wave in Delhi making its unforgettable performance a textbook case in the Indian political history, the Peace Party's results are only second to AAP in the debut category, although the margin is huge.