In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections, the people of the state have sent 36 Muslim candidates to the assembly. In the last assembly elections, 24 Muslim candidates came after electing them. The newly elected Muslim MLAs constitute 8.93% of the total 403 MLAs in the state with 19% Muslim population. Prominent Muslim faces who won the election are SP leader Azam Khan, his son Abdullah Azam Khan, jailed mafia Mukhtar Ansari’s son Abbas Ansari and his nephew Suhaib Ansari. At the same time, the only Muslim candidate of NDA has to face defeat.
BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) had fielded Haider Ali Khan alias Hamza Mian against Abdullah Azam from Swar seat in Rampur district. In the 2022 election Haider Ali Khan got 65059 votes and Abdullah Azam got 126162 votes. In this way, Azam Khan’s son Abdullah defeated the only Muslim candidate of NADA by a huge margin of 61103 votes. Apna Dal (S) candidate secured 30.52 per cent votes in Swar seat, while Abdullah Azam secured 59.19 per cent.
Jailed SP leader Azam Khan won the election in Rampur by securing 1,21,755 votes. Here Akash Saxena of BJP came second with 56,368 votes. In Mau, Mukhtar Ansari’s son Abbas Ansari defeated BJP’s Ashok Kumar Singh by 38,227 votes on SBSP ticket. Suhaib Ansari, son of former MLA Sibgatullah Ansari and nephew of Mukhtar, defeated sitting BJP MLA Alka Rai by 18199 votes from Mohammadabad constituency of Ghazipur.
SP’s Nahid Hasan defeated BJP candidate Mriganka Singh from Kairana, considered a hot seat of western UP. BJP candidate got 105148 votes while Nahid Hasan got 131035 votes. In Azamgarh’s Nizamabad seat, 85-year-old SP veteran Alam Badi defeated BJP’s Manoj by a margin of 34,187 votes.
In Meerut’s Kithor seat, there was a tough fight between Shahid Manzoor of SP and Satveer Singh of BJP. Manzoor won the election here by a margin of 2,180 votes. SP MP Shafiqur Rehman Burke’s son Zia-ur-Rehman defeated BJP’s Kamal Kumar by 43,162 votes in Kundarki seat of Moradabad.