NEW DELHI: The Muslim community, it appears, did not opt for one party in the municipal polls. While Congress won in the riot-affected areas of northeast Delhi and in Okhla, the votes in Ballimaran, Chandni Mahal and Delhi Gate went in favour of AAP.
In the 2013 assembly polls, the Muslims voted for Congress in large numbers. However, the emergence of AAP saw the Muslim constituency making a shift, resulting in a visible impact in the 2015 assembly elections that afforded AAP a significant triumph with wins in 67 of the 70 seats.
This time, the civic poll showed Congress regaining some of its lost vote. The reasons why the community did not plump for AAP are likely the communal riots in northeast Delhi in 2020 and the clashes in Jahangirpuri, the party’s silence on the Nizamuddin Markaz controversy during the Covid lockdown and on the remission given to Bilkis Bano’s assaulters, and Arvind Kejriwal’s Hindu overtures to tackle BJP.
Congress, accordingly, recorded some good wins, six of its nine seats coming in Muslim majority wards in northeast and southeast Delhi. In Mustafabad, Sabila Begum beat Sarwari Begum of AIMIM by 6,582 votes, while in Chauhan Banger, Shagufta Chaudhary Zubair trumped Asma Begum of AAP. Nazia Khatoon in Brij Puri and Zarif in Kabir Nagar had convincing margins of 2,118 and 4,095 votes, respectively. In southeast Delhi’s Zakir Nagar, Naziya Danish won by 473 votes, and in Abul Fazal Enclave, Ariba Khan beat Wazid Khan of AAP by 1,479 votes.
In Seelampur, it was an independent, Shakila Begum, who went past the post with the gap between her and Seema Sharma of BJP being 4,262 votes.
AAP managed to hold on to its vote bank in central Delhi. In Ballimaran, the party’s Mohammad Sadiq Adiq managed to beat BJP’s Ram Dev Sharma by 11,626 votes. In Chandni Mahal, Aaley Mohammed Iqbal won the contest against Mohammad Hamid of Congress by 17,134 votes. In Jama Masjid, Sultana Abad won by 7,423 votes, and in Bazar Sita Ram, Rafia Mahir managed a win after garnering 16,639 votes.
Besides being unaffected by the 2020 riots, these wards with a substantial Muslim electorate but BJP’s strongholds till now voted for a change because of the poor performance of the incumbent councillors on sanitation and other civic issues.
In the 2020 assembly polls, Muslims backed AAP, which won 62 seats and had a vote share of 53.6%. But soon after, Delhi faced its worst Hindu-Muslim violence and the support for AAP seemed to wane.
The riot-affected wards turned out in strength on polling day on Sunday, with five topping the list of voting percentage. These were Chauhan Banger (61.9%), Seelampur (61.6%), Nand Nagri (60.7%), Mustafabad (60.6%) and Brij Puri (62.9%).
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