HYDERABAD: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen won two Assembly seats out of the 44 seats it contested in the Maharashtra Assembly elections whose results were announced on Thursday.
However, the major surprise that the Hyderabad-based party pulled was its victory in the Kishanganj Assembly segment in Bihar byelections where its candidate won over a BJP contestant by over 30,000 votes.
AIMIM’s Shah Faruk Anwar won over an Independent candidate Rajwardhan Raghujirao Kadambande with a margin of 3,307 votes from Dhule city Assembly constituency in Maharashtra.
In Malegaon (Central) Assembly constituency, the city-based party’s candidate Mohammed Ismail Abdul Khalique recorded a mammoth win over the incumbent Congress’ Asif Shaik Rasheed with 38,363 votes. Malegaon.
However, AIMIM’s Byculla MLA Waris Pathan lost his seat to Shiv Sena’s Yamini Yashwant by 51,115 votes. In the 2014 Assembly elections, Pathan, an advocate by profession had won from the Muslim majority constituency over BJP’s Madhu Chavan.
Meanwhile, AIMIM also recorded a loss in Aurangabad (Central) Assembly seat, which was earlier with Imtitaz Jaleel -- who recently was elected to Lok Sabha.
However, it is in Kishanganj that AIMIM would claim its biggest victory this election season. Qamrul Hoda, who had initially faced rebellion from within the party, emerged as the dark horse by defeating BJP rival Sweety Singh.
This is AIMIM’s first win from Bihar and this may boost the morale of the party needed to gain a foothold not just in Bihar but also other northern States (AIMIM had earlier contested in UP Assembly elections and lost).
It is important to note that AIMIM had also contested from Kishanganj during the Lok Sabha elections but lost then. The bypoll was necessitated after the incumbent MLA Mohammed Javed got elected to the Lok Sabha.