Rafique Aziz
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The 2024 legislative assembly elections concluded in the district recently. However, its results forced the Muslim electors to self-analyse and realise their mistake, as they had a chance of electing two or at least one representative from the city, but they failed to encash the opportunity, due to their decisions taken emotionally or wrongly. The Muslim electors failed to analyse candidature and extend support. Hence their one wrong decision deprived them of the opportunity to send at least one representative to the legislative assembly and also to curse themselves for their decision for the next five years.
“Muslim electors do not have the right to say that they do not have their voice or able representation in the legislative assembly from the city, because they were having an opportunity to elect and send two MLAs (or one) as their representatives - from Aurangabad Central and Aurangabad East - as there is a sizeable population of Muslim electors in them. They failed to analyse who is the genuine candidate; who is playing politics with them; who is playing revenge politics; who is here to divide votes etc. There were nine Muslim candidates in fray from Aurangabad Central and 16 candidates in fray from Aurangabad East constituencies respectively,” says a political expert on anonymity.
Aurangabad Central
It has been observed that hate and revenge politics have gripped the city for the past decade or more.
In the 2024 assembly election, from Aurangabad Central, AIMIM’s Naser Siddiqui, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi’s Jawed Qureshi and seven other Muslims were in the fray. Qureshi had no connection with VBA, but politically, he was helped in getting VBA’s representation. Hence, after the date of withdrawal nomination, it was crystal clear that he was an influential candidate, but would mislead Muslims for votes, as Dalits and others would not cast a single vote for him. Qureshi is not so capable of attracting a large number of votes as he had lost corporation elections in the past.
Aurangabad East
The same mistake took place in Aurangabad East constituency. In this constituency, the Muslim electors were witness to the whole drama of Dr Quadri, who first left AIMIM, then rushed to Delhi to seek the nomination of Congress, but when all influence did not work, he managed to get the nomination of Samajwadi Party and contested the election. The calibre of Afsar Khan is well-known to all the Muslim voters. The least said is better, but he was also in the fray to divide the Muslim votes. Ironically, the Muslim electors were aware that the aim of Dr Quadri and Afsar Khan was not to contest and win the election, but to divide the votes and weaken the chances of the winning of AIMIM’s candidate Imtiaz Jaleel through the division of votes.
What went wrong?
Those who voted against the strong and influential Muslim candidates wasted their votes. Moreover, the electors lost an opportunity to elect and send Muslim representatives to the assembly, which they could have done if they had acted wisely and thought unemotionally and also verified the facts projected before them.
In the East constituency, Afsar Khan polled 6,507 votes and Dr Quadri secured 5,943 votes. The remaining 12 Muslim candidates got less than 500 votes, except one who got 567. In this revenge, Jaleel secured 91,113 votes but lost by a thin margin of just 2,161 votes.
In the Central constituency, Qureshi secured 12,639 votes, while seven others in the fray secured less than 500 votes and the strong candidate Siddiqui lost by 8,119 despite securing 77,340 votes.
Why not Tanwani Pattern?
It is an ideal example for all politicians. Former MLC Kishanchand Tanwani, the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Sena) nominated candidate from Aurangabad Central, withdrew his nomination. He proclaimed that he was doing so to avoid the division of Hindu votes as it would help the AIMIM candidate get elected as it had happened due to the division of Hindu votes in 2014 (from the same constituency). The question arises then why the Muslim leaders or candidates in the race did not adopt this pattern and withdrew their nominations. If they had done it, it may have helped elect and sent two Muslim MLAs as representatives in the Legislative Assembly.