Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM retains seven seats in Telangana but vote share drops

Hyderabad, Dec 4 (IANS) All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) retained its seven seats in the Assembly but only after coming close to losing two of them.

The party's vote share in its traditional stronghold has also come down. AIMIM candidates scraped through in two constituencies while it retained five other segments with a comfortable majority.

The AIMIM, which is also referred to as MIM, retained the seats which it had been winning since 2009.

A friendly party of BRS, it had contested nine seats, all in Hyderabad and had backed BRS in the rest of the state.

The party's vote share came down 2.22 per cent from 2.71 per cent in 2018. It contested nine seats this time against eight in the previous election.

Asaduddin Owaisi-led party polled 5,19,379 votes in all nine constituencies against 5,61,091 in eight segments in 2018.

Its candidates scraped through in Yakutpura and Nampally constituencies.

The party retained Yakutpura in the old city by only 878 votes.

Jaffer Hussain of AIMIM secured 46,153 votes while Majlis Bachao Tehreek (MBT) candidate Amjedullah Khan polled 45,275 votes.

BJP's N. Veerender Babu Yadav finished third with 22,354.

The MIM candidate was trailing in many rounds and at one stage it looked like the party would lose the seat.

In 2018, Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri had retained the seat by a margin of nearly 47,000 votes.

As expected, MIM faced a tough fight in Nampally.

Former mayor of Greater Hyderabad, Mohammed Majid Hussain was elected by a margin of only 2,037 votes against Congress candidate Mohammed Feroz Khan.

Majid Hussain secured 62,185 votes while Feroze Khan polled 60,148 votes.

BRS candidate Anand Kumar Goud secured 15,420 votes. Amid allegations by Asaduddin Owaisi that RSS leaders were campaigning for Congress candidate's victory, the constituency in the heart of the city witnessed a tense fight.

Feroze Khan has been contesting every election from Nampally since 2009 and finishing a close second.

In 2018, he lost to the MIM candidate by 9,675 votes.

Asaduddin Owaisi's brother Akbaruddin Owaisi retained Chandrayangutta seat by a margin of 81,668 votes. He has been winning this seat since 1999.

Former mayor Mir Zulfeqar Ali was elected from Charminar by a margin of over 22,000 votes against BJP’s M. Rani Agarwal.

Kausar Mohiuddin was re-elected from Karwan by a huge margin of nearly 42,000 votes against BJP’s Amar Singh.

In Malakpet, Ahmed Bin Abdullah Balala emerged victorious once again by over 26,000 votes against Congress candidate Shaik Akbar.

Mohammed Mubeen of MIM was elected from Bahadurpura by a massive margin of over 67,000 votes against Mir Inayath Ali Baqri of BRS.

In Jubilee Hills, MIM candidate Rashed Farazuddin finished a distant fourth.

Former Indian cricket captain and Congress leader Mohammed Azharuddin was defeated in this constituency by sitting MLA Maganti Gopinath of BRS by 16,337 votes. BJP candidate L. Deepak Reddy finished third.

MIM had not contested this seat in 2018 while its candidate V. Naveen Yadav had finished a close second in 2014.

MIM's vote share in Rajendranagar constituency came down drastically. Its candidate Mandagiri Swamy Yadav finished a poor fourth with 25,670 votes. The party had secured third position in 2018 with 46,547 votes. Sitting MLA T. Prakash Goud of BRS retained the seat with a margin of 32,096 votes over BJP candidate T. Srinivas Reddy.

Congress candidate K. Narender finished third. Mubeen, Zulfeqar Ali and Majid Hussain have been elected to the Assembly for the first time. There were big celebrations at Darussalam, the AIMIM headquarters late Sunday.

Asaduddin Owaisi and all the newly elected MLAs of the party joined the celebrations by hundreds of party workers.