New Delhi: Delhi’s Muslims who had been traditionally voting for Congress had shifted their loyalty to the new comer AAP in 2013. Though they supported AAP in 2015 also, but their support became absolute now in 2020 elections which was most glaringly evident at Okhla where AAP’s Amanatullah Khan, received more than 1.3 lakh votes.
Khan defeated BJP’s Braham Singh by a huge margin of 71,827 votes, while three-time Congress MLA Parvez Hashmi got just 5,107 votes. Khan got 66% vote share in Okhla, which is a Muslim-dominated constituency, while the once popular Congress got just 2.5%.
Khan’s victory in Okhla assumes importance as Shaheen Bagh, epicentre of the protests against the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act, is part of the constituency. Shaheen Bagh was used as a polarising poll plank by BJP across the city.
While Congress was vocal against CAA and NRC, AAP didn’t take a clear stand on the anti-CAA protests and kept a safe distance from Shaheen Bagh.
Congress, in its manifesto, had also promised to pass a resolution in Delhi Assembly against CAA and had also promised that if it came to power, it would not implement NRC and will not implement NPR in its current form.
But Muslims seeing BJP incapable of keeping BJP at bay, voted for AAP. Apart from Okhla, AAP performed very well in other Muslim-dominated constituencies of the city too.
5 Muslims candidates of AAP won the elections. Besides Amanatullah Khan, Abdul Rehman defeated BJP’s Kaushal Kumar Mishra by 36,992 votes at Seelampur. Imran Hussain won by a margin of 36,178 votes at Ballimaran. Shoaib Iqbal won by a margin of 50,226 votes at Matial Mahal and Haji Yunus won Mustafabad,