The BJP fielded only one Muslim candidate, Abdul Salam, from Kerala’s Malappuram.
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah slammed the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for not having any minority representation among its elected Members of Parliament (MPs) in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
The National Conference leader’s comments came as the newly elected MPs met today to elect Narendra Modi as their leader, paving the way for his third term as prime minister.
“It’s not just the BJP; the NDA is Muslim mukth, Christian mukth, Buddhist mukth, Sikh mukth, and yet the government will claim to represent 140 crore Indians,” Abdullah tweeted.
His remarks were in response to a report detailing the representation of various communities, including Muslims, in both the NDA and the INDIA bloc among the newly elected MPs.
The NDA secured 293 seats, comfortably above the 272-seat majority mark in the 543-member Lok Sabha. The BJP won 240 seats, while the Congress secured 99 seats, with an independent MP joining the Congress party.
The BJP fielded only one Muslim candidate, Abdul Salam, from Kerala’s Malappuram constituency, who lost to Indian Union Muslim League leader Mohammed Basheer by a margin of 30,118 votes.
The kingmaker allies of the BJP, the TDP and JDU, brought 16 and 12 MPs, respectively to the mix. Among other NDA members, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena won seven seats and Chirag Paswan’s LJP secured all five that it contested. None of the NDA allies brought any minority MPs.
Interestingly, the TDP has made it clear it would continue the reservation provided to Muslims, a policy strongly opposed by the BJP. The Andhra Pradesh-based believes that reservation isn’t for appeasement, but social justice as the minorities in the state have the lowest per capita income.
While the NDA has no Muslim MPs, the INDIA bloc has 7.9 percent Muslim MPs. Similarly, the NDA has no Christian MPs, while the INDIA bloc has 3.5 percent Christian MPs. There are no Sikh MPs in the NDA, whereas the INDIA bloc has 5 percent Sikh MPs, according to the report cited by Abdullah.
In total, 24 Muslim MPs have been elected to the Lok Sabha this time. India’s 220 million Muslims constitute a little under a fifth of its 1.4 billion population. These MPs come from only nine out of 28 states and eight Union territories.
The INDIA bloc will send 21 Muslim MPs to the Lok Sabha. While Congress will have seven Muslim representatives among its 99 seats, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress has five Muslim MPs, and the Samajwadi Party four.
AIMIM chief Asaddudin Owaisi has returned to Lok Sabha from Hyderabad after defeating BJP’s Madhavi Latha with a huge margin.
Congress’ Rakibul Hussain won Dhubri with a margin of 10.12 lakh votes. The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has two Muslim MPs from Kerala and one from Tamil Nadu. The Jammu & Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) won two seats, while the North Kashmir seat was claimed by independent candidate Engineer Rashid. Another independent candidate Haji Mohamad Haneefa won from Ladakh.
