Three years after the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) stir started in Shaheen Bagh on December 15, 2019, followed by the northeast Delhi violence in February 2020, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) seems to have lost the Muslim vote in the area.
The party has been wiped out from most of the seats which were either the sites of sustained protest against the CAA or the violence that hit the city shortly afterwards. The party had maintained a distance from the anti-CAA stir and expressed its inability to control violence in northeast Delhi in the absence of control over the local police. The violence claimed more than 50 victims.
Wards like Abul Fazal Enclave, which is adjacent to Shaheen Bagh, and the Muslim-dominated Mustafabad, Brijpuri, Shastri Park and Zakir Nagar voted the Congress candidates to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. In fact, all but two of the nine councillors who won on Congress ticket in Delhi did so from pockets of Muslim domination. Significantly, these areas have sitting AAP MLAs in Amanatullah Khan (Okhla), Haji Yunus (Mustafabad) and Abdul Rehman (Seelampur).
Abul Fazal Enclave, which also has the headquarters of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, sent first-timer Ariba Khan to the MCD while in Zakir Nagar, Congress candidate Nazia Danish emerged victorious.
Speaking to the media shortly after her victory, Ms. Khan hoped that the administration would help her clean the area, and her victory was one for development. She opined that Muslims had seen through the development facade of the Kejriwal government in Delhi, and put their faith in the inclusive politics of the Congress.
In northeast Delhi, where the Muslim community reported 36 mortalities in the communal violence in 2020 besides attacks on 19 mosques and dargahs, the Congress candidates won from Brijpuri, Shastri Park, Chauhan Banger and Mustafabad, each of which suffered badly during the violence.
Mustafabad, Brijpuri Puliya and Shastri Park were also sites of the anti-CAA protests.
Nazia Khatoon of the Congress triumphed in Brijpuri where a couple of schools were set on fire during the violence besides attacks on the anti-CAA protest site.
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Shagufta Zubair won from Chauhan Banger in the area, while Sabeela Begum clinched the Mustafabad seat. The Congress’s Sameer Ahmed won from Shastri Park. The areas had reported spirited protests against the CAA and the local AAP MLA was allegedly absent. Meanwhile, Independent candidate Shakeela Begum won the Seelampur seat. The sole saving grace for the AAP came from Sri Ram Colony where Aamil Malik bucked the trend.
In the neighbouring Karawal Nagar, Bhajanpura and Ashok Nagar, which too reported violence in which 17 Hindus lost their lives, the Bharatiya Janata Party candidates notched up easy wins, consigning the AAP to losses from both ends.
However, it was not all doom and gloom for the AAP in Delhi when it came to retaining the Muslim vote in some pockets.
In Old Delhi, the AAP candidates won from Ballimaran, Chandni Mahal and Jama Masjid. These seats, notably, did not report violence in 2020 nor were they sites of anti-CAA protests.
For the Congress, the support of the Muslim community in some pockets provided the sole silver lining to the cloud of dismal performance.
