All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Waris Parthan made a dramatic post on Facebook on Thursday after losing the Assembly Election in Maharashtra from the Byculla Constituency. The post claimed that it wasn’t only Waris Pathan who suffered a defeat, the whole Muslim community lost yesterday. The post also called him ‘true leader of Mumbai’.
Pathan had added an image where he was posing with a sword. The sword also had “Sher of Maharashtra Janab Waris Pathan (MLA)” printed on it, along with the name of the presenters.
Some of his followers, consistent with the dramatic nature of the post, resorted to abusing actor Ajaz Khan for the defeat calling him ‘traitor’ and worse in the comments section. They claimed the controversial actor was the sole reason for Pathan’s defeat and insinuated that he was paid to contest the election from that very seat. The basis for this assumption was that Ajaz Khan divided the Muslim vote in the constituency, thus, resulting in Pathan’s defeat.
Some comments, although they didn’t name Ajaz Khan specifically, insinuated that the defeat could be attributed to a ‘traitor’. It was also claimed that Allah is watching those ‘traitors’ who caused Waris Pathan’s defeat.
Interestingly, not just actor Ajaz Khan, the Byculla constituency had several other Muslim candidates too. But Waris Pathan’s supporters chose only to blame the actor. Even NOTA had got more votes than Ajaz Khan.
Facts and figures
In reality, Waris Pathan’s defeat had nothing to do with Ajaz Khan. Shiv Sena candidate Yamini Yashwant Jadhav secured 41.03% of the votes while Pathan could manage only 24.98% of them. Ajaz Khan meanwhile secured 2174 votes which amounted to a vote share of 1.74%. Thus, as is obvious, the margin of victory for Jadhav was so great that the votes that went to Ajaz Khan were utterly insignificant in the larger scheme of things.
The AIMIM won two seats in Maharashtra, Dhule City and Malegaon Central. However, the real surprise was the party’s victory in Bihar’s Kishanganj where the demography is heavily in its favour. It is the party’s first-ever win in the ‘Hindi Belt’. Qamrul Hoda beat his nearest rival, BJP’s Sweety Singh by a margin of 10,204 votes in the Kishanganj bypoll.
