AIMIM wins 2 seats in Maharashtra, opens Bihar A/C

Hyderabad: The All India Majlis Ittehad ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) was disappointed with the outcome of the results in Maharashtra, where it repeated its performance of winning two seats, with its candidates from Dhule and Malegaon central registering victories.

The party was, however, expecting at least seven seats in this election.It came as a shock for the party that it could not retain its two seats of Byculla and Aurangabad central.

However, the party has registered its first electoral victory in Bihar, where party candidate Qamrul Hoda won from Kishanganj in a byelection. Mr Qamrul Hoda defeated Ms Sweety Singh of the BJP by a margin of 10,204 votes.

The Kishanganj Assembly seat fell vacant after Mr Javed Alam of the Congress resigned, after being elected to the Parliament in May.

The All India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen had contested in six constituencies in Bihar in the 2015 state elections, but failed to open its account. It fielded the party’s state unit president, Akhtarul Iman, in the Lok Sabha election from Kishanganj in last Parliament elections, where he secured the third position.

AIMIM, after breaking its alliance with the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) headed by Prakash Ambedkar, fielded 44 candidates in Maharashtra, out of 288 seats.

Maulana Mufti Mohammed Ismail Abdul Khalique, the party candidate from Malegaon central, defeated Asif Shaikh Rasheed, the sitting MLA of the Congress Party, by a margin of 38,519 votes. Mr Khalique bagged 1,17,242 (58.52 per cent) of the votes, ahead of his nearest rival, who secured 78,723 votes.

Shah Faruk Anwar won the Dhule city constituency, defeating Rajwardhan Raghujirao Kadambande (Rajubaba), an independent candidate, by a margin of 3,307 votes. Mr Anwar  secured 46,679 (28.93 per cent) votes.

Party’s sitting MLA from Byculla constituency, Waris Yousuf Pathan, lost the election to Ms Yamini Yashwant Jadhav, the Shiv Sena candidate, by a margin of 20,023 votes. Shiv Sena also snatched the Aurangabad central seat from the AIMIM. Sena’s Jaiswal Pradeep Shivnarayan defeated AIMIM candidate Naseeruddin Taquiuddin Siddiqui. Mr Jaiswal got 82,217 votes while Mr Siddiqui secured 68,325 votes. Mr Imtiyaz Jaleel, now a Member of Parliament, and president of MIM state unit, had won the seat in 2014 elections here.

AIMIM candidate Dr. Abdul Gaffar Quadri Syed lost the election from Aurangabad east. He was defeated by Atul Moreshwar Save, the BJP candidate. Mr Save won the seat by a margin of 13,930 votes. In Aurangabad west, MIM’s Arun Vithalrao Borde got third position.

AIMIM also supported Khalid (Guddu), an independent candidate who contested from the Bhiwandi west constituency, but could secure only a second position. He was defeated by Chaughule Mahesh Prabhakar, BJP candidate, by a margin of 14,912 votes.

The AIMIM was anticipating victories in Malegaon central, Dhule city, Aurangabad central, Byculla, Aurangabad east, Aurangabad west, Bhiwandi west and Nanded south. Party workers felt that had its national president, Akbaruddin Owaisi, had taken part in the campaigning, the results might have been different. They said that in few constituencies they were defeated due to polarisation of Hindu votes against their candidate.