The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Majlis on cloud nine

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 17, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Majlis on cloud nine

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, OCT. 16. The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen couldn't have asked for a better Ramzan gift. After a gap of 10 years, the party recaptured the Asifnagar Assembly seat in the fiercely-contested byelections. The Majlis candidate, Mohd. Moazam Khan, ended the winning streak of his Congress counterpart, D. Nagender, by defeating him with a margin of 2,110 votes when counting of votes was taken up on Saturday.

Mr. Khan polled 25,719 votes against 23,609 by Mr. Nagender. The TDP candidate, Arvind Kumar Goud, came a poor third by securing 16,758 votes while the MBT's Khayam Khan, got just 1,499 votes. In the general elections held during May, Mr. Nagender had done a hat trick by winning the Asifnagar seat for the third time in a row by defeating Haji Sait of Majlis by a margin of 2,774 votes.

"The good performance of Majlis in other constituencies is the reason for my victory. Also people are fed up with Mr. Nagender who did nothing for the people of Asifnagar," remarked a beaming Mr. Khan.

Sabotage alleged

A dejected Mr. Nagender attributed his defeat to "internal sabotage". "Some of the city legislators and Congress men worked against me in my strongholds like Jambagh, Gunfoundary and Nampally. I lost 6000 votes here. I have already given a complaint to the AICC," Mr. Nagender said.

He did not agree with the view that his change of parties had affected him. "People are still with me," he asserted.

The Majlis MP, Asaduddin Owaisi, said his party's victory was a triumph of minorities, dalits and backward classes. "The verdict is against the five-months misrule of the Congress and its wrong policies. It is time the Congress does self introspection," he said.

The verdict had showed that the Muslim leaders in the Congress did not carry any weight with the community. All the nine Ministers who campaigned in Asifnagar should tender their resignation from the Cabinet. The verdict was also against the "political prostitution" by the MBT, Mr. Owaisi said.

He wanted the Election Commission to amend the rules so that whimsical candidates "like Mr. Nagender" do not resign just to join another party.

A large number of Majlis supporters gathered at the MCH stadium at Amberpet where the counting of votes was taken up on Saturday morning.

Early lead

Mr. Nagender established an early lead leaving the Majlis trailing behind. However, the candidate's fortunes kept fluctuating and Mr. Khan forged ahead from the sixth round. In all there were 14 rounds of counting. There were 15 candidates in the fray and a total of 70,311 votes were polled.

Though the Majlis candidate emerged victorious, he had to wait for quite some time for the declaration of result. One electronic voting machine belonging to booth 69 developed a snag. The ECIL engineers tried in vain to make it work. The EVM had 118 votes. The Returning Officer, E. Sridhar, referred the matter to the Election Commission of India and only after obtaining its permission declared the result.

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