Thursday, March 28, 2024

Owaisi got an embarrassing drubbing in Gujarat

The 2022 Gujarat assembly elections have been different in many ways. This is for the first time that a third party other than the BJP and Congress has played an effective role in the Gujarat assembly elections. This time in Gujarat, there was a power struggle between the BJP, Congress, and the Aam Aadmi Party. And in 14 seats, AIMIM also tried its luck.

AIMIM had fielded candidates in 14 seats in Gujarat where Muslim voters are in a sizeable majority. Most of these seats are traditionally called strongholds of Congress.

12 out of these 14 Muslim-majority seats were won by the BJP.

Asaduddin Owaisi had hoped that the Muslims of Gujarat would welcome him with open arms. He had visited Gujarat several times during campaigning and held several meetings. The AIMIM chief’s meetings received a mixed response. There was a crowd in the meetings, but at the same time, they were also seen being opposed by Muslims everywhere.

Now, as the results have come out, it can be seen that the party failed to make any mark in the election. AIMIM didn’t win any seat in Gujarat, and its vote share is less the 0.3%. Most of the AIMIM candidates lost their security deposit in the polls.

Out of the total of 182 seats, AIMIM had fielded its candidates from 14 seats. Its vote share in the state is less than 0.3%, while newcomer AAP has got almost 13% of the votes polled in the state. AAP has won 5 seats in Gujarat, and it is now the third-largest party in the state in terms of both the number of MLAs and vote share.

While the forms were still being submitted, AIMIM suffered a setback. On the last day of withdrawal of forms, the AIMIM candidate from Bapunagar, Shahnawaz Pathan, withdrew his form and joined the Congress.

Owaisi became emotional when he was campaigning for the second phase of polling after the first phase of polling. On December 2, while addressing a public meeting in Jamalpur, he broke down in tears.

Owaisi cried and appealed to the people to make Sabir win so that ‘no injustice is done to any Bilkis again’. Owaisi begged for votes in front of the people and said, “Allah, please make Sabir an MLA.”

Major fights on all these seats were between Congress and BJP only. AIMIM was not in second place in any of these seats. In fact, it was in the fourth spot on 7 out of these 14 seats.

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