Friday, February 24, 2017

AIMIM Arrival Increases Muslim representation in Mumbai Municipal Corporation: The 'Votes Will Split' Theory Demolished

It was repeatedly being said that AIMIM's entry would hurt Muslim representation as the community's votes would further be divided.

But, on the contrary, the representation of Muslims has gone up in a big way in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the results of which have been announced.

There were 23 Muslim corporators in BMC in the last corporation. After AIMIM's entry, the figure has gone up to 28.

That's a sharp increase in Muslim presence in the corporation in India's biggest city.

Some news reports said that 31 Muslims won LINK. However, the figure seems to be 28, now. Muslim population in Mumbai is nearly 19%.

The representation was earlier 10%. Now, it has gone up to 12.3%. Surprisingly, even Shiv Sena's two Muslim candidates won the election.

Congress and NCP have fared badly. Yet, it is their Muslim candidates who had far better winning rate.

MIM could win just three seats though it performed much better in Amravati and Solapur civic bodies.

Clearly, the myth about split in votes that had kept Muslims worried for years, has been broken--at least in Mumbai.

In fact, the results again show that Congress and other parties were not giving adequate tickets to Muslims, and were unable to even shift their non-Muslim votes for Muslim candidates.