By Saiyed Danish, TwoCircles.net,
As the astounding verdict of Delhi Assembly elections became clear by the late evening of December 8, the lather of ill-conceived asseverations of the Congress party drained off leaving behind a sordid tale of a manifest disapproval of the party by the voters. What were left were the scaffoldings of only eight seats whose representatives will sit in the 70 seat strong assembly.
Out the eight constituencies where the party was able to save it face, four are Muslim-dominated areas where Muslim leaders have been re-elected on party’s ticket. This technically makes 50% of all Congress MLAs Muslims in the Delhi Assembly.
Congress’ Haroon Yusuf campaigning at his constituency in Ballimaran.
The victorious Muslim leaders are four time MLA and minister Haroon Yusuf from Ballimaran by over 8000 votes, Hasan Ahmad from Mustafabad by 2000 votes, Ch. Mateen Ahmad from Seelampur by 22,000 votes and Asif Mohammad Khan from Okhla seat by over 25,000 votes. In addition to that, two other seats won by the party are the Chandni chowk seat from where Prahlad Singh Sawhney has won consists of 25% Muslim voters and Gandhinagar seat secured by the Sikh Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely. Clearly, it is the minority communities of Delhi, primarily Muslims, who rescued the party from a total debacle.
As it is clear now that the no single party has reached the magic figure in Delhi so there a greater chance of re-elections looms over the city. It is widely believed that the people who did not vote for AAP for obvious suspicious reasons will now express their allegiance to the party more confidently following its stupendous and unprecedented victory in 28 constituencies.
While looking at the margin with which these candidates secured their comfortable victories one can say that Congress party’s strategies worked best in Muslim-dominated areas this time. However, leaving Okhla, where a combination of Congress core supporters and sitting MLA’s supporters, worked in favour and the Seelampur bastion of Ch Mateen Ahmed, the party’s victories on other two seats of Mustafabad and Ballimaran cannot be called comfortable.
While BJP’s Moti Lal Sodhi’s 24012, and BSP’s Imran Hussain’s 16267 respective votes polled threaten swinging of equation if re-elections happen. Farhana Anjum of AAP also got 13103 which has brought her privileged rivals in her firing range. As in the case of Hasan Ahmad in Mustafabad, BJP’s Jagdish Pradhan’s votes (54354) are only 2000 short of defeating Ahmad.
Okhla MLA Asif Mohammad Khan during election's campaign.
Nevertheless, the experiment of taking Muslim voters in confidence due to Modi-factor is now a success. In every Muslim-dominated constituency the congress candidates made the threat of Modi appear as if he was the Bjp's CM candidate in Delhi instead of Harshvardhan.
Terms like faasiwadi, and mention of Gujarat riots were Haroon Yusuf’s hot favourite topics where Asif Mohd. Khan in Okhla extensively raised Batla House encounter issue and talked about using Sheila to get justice for the two slain youths in the operation in order to mobilize muslim votes. Haroon Yusuf in Ballimaran knew exactly how he had to pull votes as his popularity had hit an all-time low. When TCN had spoken to the voters in Ballimaran they said they will be voting for congress to stop Modi and not because of Haroon Yusuf factor.
On the other hand, Congress party’s decision of giving Asif Mohammad ticket instead of Shoib Danish while putting up with his tantrums paid off well. People voted for the popularity of Asif and his assurance to leave Congress if he could not ensure justice to Batla House youths.
Besides Modi factor, Muslims’ vote for the party also appears to be a message of loyalty sent by the electorate at a time when even the Hindu lower and working class votes shifted away from the party.
Will the Congress party take heed of this token of allegiance by the Muslims and take some much awaited steps required for their welfare or their gesture of standing by the party is going to get misunderstood more even is something to watch out for?