Muslim representation up in Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha

The representation of Muslim MLAs in the 14th Maharashtra Legislative Assembly has gone up but could have been more if split of votes had not taken place.
The 2019 Vidhan Sabha would have 10 Muslim MLAs as against nine of 2014.

Of the tally of 10, Congress has 3, NCP (2), Samajwadi Party (2) and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (2) and Shiv Sena (1). The 10 MLAs are Congress’ Amin Patel (Mumbadevi) and Aslam Shaikh (Malad) and Zeeshan Siddiqui (Bandra East), NCP’s Hasan Mushrif (Kagal) and Nawab Malik (Anushakti Nagar) Samajwadi Party’s Abu Asim Azmi (Shivaji Nagar-Mankhurd) and Rais Shaikh (Bhiwandi West), Shiv Sena's Abdul Sattar (Sillod), AIMIM’s Mufti Ismail (Malegaon Central) and Shah Faruk (Dhule City).

In fact, some of the Muslim candidates lost narrowly, like Naseem Khan from Chandivali. A four-time MLA, Khan, who is the deputy leader of the Congress in the outgoing Assembly, lost to Shiv Sena's Dilip Lande by a margin of 409 votes, because of candidates of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi and AIMIM, who together polled more votes than the winning margin.

Zeeshan Siddiqui, who is just 27, is the youngest MLA in the 14th Assembly - and he emerged as a giant killer by defeating Shiv Sena candidate Mumbai Mayor Prof Vishwanath Mahadeshwar from Bandra East - as sitting MLA from the same seat Trupti Sawant, filed her papers as an Independent. The Bandra East is a prestigious seat for Shiv Sena as Matoshree, the bungalow of Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray, is located in the constituency.

Abdul Sattar is a former MLA of the Congress and joined Shiv Sena ahead of Assembly polls.

With a population of 1.3 crore, Muslims constitute 11.56 per cent of Maharashtra’s total 11.24-crore population.

In 1999, Maharashtra had seen the highest number of Muslim MLAs in the Vidhan Sabha with 13 members of the Muslim community getting elected.