Maharashtra Assembly Sees No Increase In Muslim Representation, With 10 MLAs The Same As 2019

The new Maharashtra assembly will have 10 Muslim legislators, the same number in the outgoing house. Of them, six are from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, including five from Mumbai.

Community groups have pointed out that the Muslim Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA) will constitute around 3.5% of the 288-member house, much lower than their proportion in the state's population -12-13%. The low representation comes after the disappointment in the community after the parliamentary elections in May when there was no Muslim among the 48 Members of Parliament from the state. Maharashtra's 78-member Legislative Council does not have a Muslim member after two members from the community finished their terms in July.

“10 out of 288 MLAs. That is 3.47% of the house. That is too low,” reacted a community member to the election results, suggesting that the only way the community could get proportional representation in the assembly was if at least 30 seats were directly filled with nominees from Maharashtrian Muslims.

The number of Muslim MLAs in Maharashtra's assembly has hovered around 10 for more than two decades after reaching a figure of 12 in 1999. Their numbers then fell in every subsequent election, from 11 in 2004 to 10 in 2009 and 9 in 2014 before rebounding to 10 in 2019.

After the council elections, when none of the major political parties nominated Muslims for the to the council elections, community leaders in Mumbai had announced the setting up of a group called 'The Muslim Pressure Group' to lobby for better representation in the government. “Everything was going on well after the group was formed. In the parliamentary elections in May, Muslims voted for the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). We were hoping that the MVA will field more Muslim nominees,” said Altaf Patel, chief of the Muslim Pressure Group.

Shabbir Ansari, Founder-President of All India Muslim OBC Organisation, said that their group met Congress leaders like Mallikarjun Kharge, Nana Patole, and NCP's Sharad Pawar to ask for adequate representation for Muslim candidates. “But they did not fulfill the promise. There are seats in Solapur, Nagpur, Pune, and other districts from where Muslim MLAs have been elected earlier. Muslims were not nominated from these seats. Only one seat out of the 46 in Marathwada was given to a Muslim nominee. There were no Muslim nominees in Vidarbha. At least Ajit Pawar's NCP gave some seats to Muslims. Congress did not do much,” said Ansari.

Patel said that announcements by clerics like Maulana Sajjad Naumani, a religious scholar based in Mumbai, that Muslims will support 269 MVA candidates could have caused a counter-mobilisation of Hindu votes in favour of the BJP-led MahaYuti. “After the announcement was made, the matter was discussed in the national media for nearly three days. Leaders like Raj Thackeray reacted to this by saying that fatwas are being issued from mosques asking Muslims to vote for MVA. This created negative publicity and Hindus voted for MahaYuti. There was no need for such an announcement. Local voters know who they should vote for. In Thane, Muslims favoured a Hindu candidate over a Muslim candidate because they trusted his work," said Patel.

Dr Azimuddin of the group, Movement for Human Welfare, who had announced the list of candidates endorsed by Naumani, did not respond to a request for a comment, saying that he was busy with meetings related to Muslim personal law.

Adding to the disappointment in the community about the low number of MLAs is the fact that four of the 10 have been elected with margins of less than 4000 votes. The Malegaon MLA scraped through with a lead of 162 votes over another Muslim candidate. Haroon Khan of the Congress won the Versova seat with a margin of just 1600 votes. Three sitting Muslim MLAs, Nawab Malik, Zeeshan Siddique, and Farook Shah, lost from Mankhurd-Shivaji Nagar, Vandre East, and Dhule, respectively. In the last assembly, Malik had represented Anushakti Nagar, a seat won by his daugher Sana Malik this time.

Muslim MLAs

Malad: Aslam Shaikh, Congress

Mumbadevi: Amin Patel, Congress

Anushakti Nagar: Sana Malik, NCP

Mankhurd-Shivaji Nagar: Abu Asim Azmi, Samajwadi Party

Versova: Haroon Khan, Shiv Sena (UBT)

Bhiwandi East: Rais Shaikh, Samajwadi Party

Akola West: Sajid Khan Pathan, Congress

Malegaon Central: Mufti Mohammad Ismail, AIMIM

Kagal: Mushrif Hasan, NCP

Sillod: Abdul Sattar, Shiv Sena