Of 78 Muslim candidates, 24 have won Lok Sabha contests in six states and three Union territories – none of them are from the NDA camp. This is a slide from the 27 MPs that were part of the lower house of Parliament the last time.
Among the winners are six from West Bengal, five from Uttar Pradesh, three each from Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir, two from Bihar, and one each from Tamil Nadu, Assam, Telangana, Ladakh and Lakshadweep.
The 2014 polls saw the lowest Muslim representation in the Lok Sabha at 22, while the community had its highest representation in 1980 at 49. Of the 24 who have been elected this time, seven are from the Congress, followed by five from the TMC, four from the SP, and three from the IUML.
The surprise losses and record victories
The most prominent loss for a party seen as “Muslim” was to the AIUDF in Assam, whose chief Badruddin Ajmal lost with a margin of 10,00,000 votes to Congress’s Rakibul Hussain in Dhubri. Speaking to the media, the three-time MP said his party will make a comeback in the 2026 Assam assembly elections despite a rout in the three Lok Sabha seats his party had contested. Before the elections, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had threatened to get Ajmal arrested in case he decides to marry again, saying that the Uniform Civil Code will be implemented in the northeastern state after the elections.
It seems the minority vote in Assam completely shifted to the INDIA bloc, which AIUDF wasn’t a part of, with the Congress winning three seats and clocking about 37.48 percent of the vote share. The increased vote share wasn’t able to arrest the BJP’s march – the saffron party got 37.43 percent of the votes but managed to win nine seats.
The other prominent face who tasted defeat was Danish Ali, who had switched over to the Congress from the BSP after BJP’s Ramesh Bidhuri hurled expletives against him in Parliament. Ali lost with a margin of around 28,000 votes in Amroha.
All the victories in Kerala were notable. Congress’s young gun Shafi Parambil defeated the CPM’s high-profile candidate and former health minister KK Shailaja with a margin of 1.14 lakh votes in Vadakara in Kerala’s Kozhikode district, whereas the IUML’s ET Mohammed Basheer and MP Abdussamad Samadani were elected from Malappuram and Ponnani with the second- and third-largest margins in the state after Rahul Gandhi.
The highest victory margin otherwise belonged to Rakibul Hussain whereas the thinnest was in Lakshadweep, where Congress’s Muhammed Hamdullah Syeed defeated incumbent Mohammed Faizal of the NCP (SP) with a margin of around 2,500 votes in the thinly populated constituency.
The Bengal faces
West Bengal has elected the highest number of Muslim MPs this time, from Maldaha Dakshin, Jangipur, Baharampur, Murshidabad, Basirhat, and Uluberia.
The highest margin was in Basirhat, where the TMC’s SK Nurul Islam got 3.3 lakh votes more than BJP candidate and Sandeshkhali survivor Rekha Patra. The slimmest margin in comparison was in Baharampur, where TMC candidate and former cricketer Yusuf Pathan defeated Congress heavyweight Adhir Ranjan Choudhary with a margin of 85,000 votes.
Among others were Congress’s Isha Khan Choudhury, who defeated the BJP’s Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury by 1.28 lakh votes in Maldaha Dakshin; and TMC’s Khalilur Rahman, who defeated Congress’s Murtoja Hossain Bikul with 1.16 lakh votes in Jangipur.
In Murshidabad, TMC’s Abu Taher Khan defeated the CPM’s Mohammad Salim with 1.64 lakh votes, whereas in Uluberia, BJP’s Arunuday Paulchowdhury lost to TMC’s Sajda Ahmed by a margin of 2.18 lakh votes.
From alliance magic in UP to Hyderabad’s familiar face
In Uttar Pradesh, Saharanpur was won by the Congress’s Imran Masood while Kairana, Ghazipur, Sambhal and Rampur were won by SP candidates.
Imran Masood won with a margin of 64,000 votes, defeating BJP’s Raghav Lakhanpal.
In Kairana, Iqra Choudhary defeated BJP’s Pradeep Kumar with around 69,000 votes, whereas in Rampur, Mohibullah Nadwi defeated BJP’s Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi with around 87,000 votes.
In Sambhal, Zia Ur Rehman, the son of deceased MP Shafiqur Rehman Barq, defeated BJP’s Parmeshwar Lal Saini with 1.2 lakh votes, while in Ghazipur, deceased politician Mukhtar Ansari’s brother Afzal Ansari defeated BJP’s Paras Nath Rai with 1.24 lakh votes.
In Ladakh, independent candidate Mohammad Haneefa won with a margin of 27,862 votes. In Jammu and Kashmir, independent candidate Abdul Rashid Sheikh won from Baramulla with a total of 4.7 lakh votes, whereas National Conference candidates Mian Altaf Ahmad and Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi won Anantnag-Rajouri and Srinagar, respectively.
In Telangana’s Hyderabad, AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi continued his winning streak with a victory margin of over 3.3 lakh votes, defeating BJP’s Madhavi Latha.
In Bihar, Congress’s Tariq Anwar defeated JD-U’s Dulal Chandra Goswami with a margin of around 49,000 votes in Katihar, whereas in Kishanganj, Congress’s Mohammad Jawed defeated JD-U’s Mujahid Alam with a margin of around 59,000 votes.
Anwar had last won Katihar in 2014 when he contested on an NCP ticket. He was defeated by Goswami in 2019.
In Tamil Nadu’s Ramanathapuram, DMK ally, incumbent MP and IUML’s K Navas Kani defeated O Panneerselvam with a margin of 1.6 lakh votes. After the results, Navas Kani thanked CM MK Stalin for his support and alliance leaders for ensuring his victory.