Muslim representation increases to 27 in 17th Lok Sabha

Muslim representation in 17th Lok Sabha has increased byfive taking the community’s tally to 27 from 22 in the outgoing Lok Sabha withthe BJP getting its lone Muslim face as Saumitra Khan, who won from West Bengalagainst Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress.

Most of the winning candidates are from opposition partieswhile only one candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which won 303 outof 542 seats across the country, could make it to the Lower House.

   

Saumitra Khan is the lone BJP MP in the current Lok Sabhawhile Mahbub Ali Kaiser is the Lok Janshakti Party’s (LJP) winning candidatefrom Khagaria in Bihar. Both will be representing ruling National DemocraticAlliance (NDA) in the Lok Sabha.

Muslim representation in the 16th Lok Sabha had dipped toits lowest so far at 22. In 15th Lok Sabha, 33 members of the community wereelected. The highest number of Muslim MPs in the Lok Sabha was in 1980, when 49members of the community were elected.

The BJP had fielded six Muslim candidates. Khan, a formerTrinamool Congress member who switched to the BJP ahead of the polls, won fromBishnupur in West Bengal, where the lotus bloomed and the BJP won 18 of thetotal 42 seats.

Khan defeated Trinamool’s Shyamlal Santra by a margin of78,047 votes. Khan got 6,57,019 votes in his favour.

The BJP had fielded Mafuja Khatun from Jangipur, aconstituency where 61.79 per cent of the population is Muslim. She was thirdwhile the winner was Trinamool’s Khalilur Rahaman. The seat was earlierrepresented by Congress’s Abhijit Mukherjee, son of former President PranabMukherjee. Abhijit was second garnering 2,55,836 votes.

Humayun Kabir was another BJP candidate who contested fromMurshidabad, where the community comprises 66 per cent of the population. Kabirgot 2,47,809 votes but remained third.

Other Muslim candidates of the party failed to save theirdeposits. The party had fielded three Muslim candidates in Kashmir. Sofi Yousufcontested from Anantnag and garnered only 10,225 votes. Mohammad Maqbool Wargot 7,894 votes in Baramula while Sheikh Khalid Jehangir got 4,631 votes inSrinagar.

Most of the elected Muslim candidates belong to the Congress(5) and Trinamool Congress (5), followed by the Samajwadi Party (3), BahujanSamaj Party (3) and the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (3).

Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, which have a considerableMuslim population, are sending six MPs each from the community. In the 2014 LokSabha elections, no Muslim candidate had won from Uttar Pradesh as the BJP hadwon 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats.

Bahujan Samaj Party candidates Afzal Ansari from Ghazipur,Fazalur Rahman from Saharanpur and Danish Ali in Amroha, and Samajwadi Party’sAzam Khan from Rampur, Shafique Rehman Barq from Sambhal and S.T. Hasan fromMoradabad made their way to the Lok Sabha. The Congress had fielded six Muslimcandidates in Uttar Pradesh, but none of them won a seat.

Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state, has electedthree MPs, all from the National Conference. Bihar, which had sent four MuslimMPs to the Lok Sabha in 2014, will only have two MPs from the community thisyear. Besides Kaisar while another is Mohammad Jawed of the Congress, who wonfrom Kishanganj.

Three Muslim candidates won from Kerala, while two fromAssam will also be in the 17th Lok Sabha.

Mohammed Faizal of the Nationalist Congress Party won thelone seat in Lakshadweep. The Congress’ Mohammad Sadique also won the Faridkotseat from Punjab. Indian Union Muslim League candidate K. Navas Kani won fromRamanathapuram in Tamil Nadu.

The All India Majlis-e-Itthadul Muslimeen will have twocandidates in Parliament – party chief Asaduddin Owaisi from Hyderabad andImtiaz Jaleel from Aurangabad in Maharashtra. Jaleel’s victory gainssignificance as Aurangabad is not a Muslim majority constituency.

The party in Maharashtra had formed an alliance with PrakashAmbedkar’s Vanchit Bahugan Aghadi.

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