CHHATTISGARH :

As Congress comes back to power in Chhattisgarh after fifteen years, one of the most talked about victories in the state elections has come from Kawardha.

Senior Congress leader Mohammad Akbar has won by a huge margin–he was leading by over 51,000 votes as per latest trends.

Akbar will be the sole Muslim MLA in the 90 member Assembly of the tribal-dominated state. He had secured over 1.15 lakh votes while the other candidate, BJP’s Ashok Sahu had secured 64,000 votes.

Congress has swept the state but it is the margin of victory that tells the real story about Akbar, one of the most popular leaders of the state, who strangely is not as much known outside Chhattisgarh.

In fact, this is the biggest win after Amitesh Shukla’s victory over Santosh Upadhyay by a margin of 59,000 votes. Shukla has beaten an earlier record of Ajit Jogi’s victory margin (52,000).

Akbar was a former minister in Congress government (during Ajit Jogi’s tenure).

Though in the last Assembly polls, he had lost, he has won repeatedly from various constituencies across the State.

Though Chhattisgarh doesn’t have a sizable Muslim population–the community is more concentrated in cities and towns, Md Akbar has won from constituencies that had less than 5% Muslims.

In times of polarization, it is no mean achievement. In 1990, he had contested from Raipur rural seat and had lost to Tarun Chatterji, a local strongman and former Mayor of Raipur. Akbar had lost but got nearly 42% votes, even then.

In 1993, he lost from Virendra Nagar constituency but won in the year 1998. The other senior Muslim leader from Chhattisgarh, Badruddin Qureshi, was elected from Bhilai the same year.

Akbar kept getting elected laster also. In 2008, he had won from Pandaria.
Chhattisgarh has a population of over 2.56 crore as per the last Census. There are less than one million Muslims in the state.

In the year 2013, there was no Muslim MLA in Chhattisgarh Assembly. In this election, Akbar will be the sole Muslim legislator. The other Congress leader, Badruddin Qureshi has lost from Vaishalinagar constituency by a margin of around 18,000 votes.

source: http://www.newsd.in / Newsd.in / Home> Assembly Elections 2018> Chattisgarh Election> Politics / by Shams Ur Rehman Alavi / December 12th, 2018