AAP eyes Muslim votes
A large section of Dalits are also with the AAP, says Amanatullah Khan
NEW DELHI: With the Lok Sabha elections around the corner and little chance of an alliance with the Congress in Delhi, the AAP at the grassroots level initiated its work to bring together the Muslim votes of the city. Senior leaders of the party said that the AAP has initiated work targeting to get nearly 80 per cent vote.
Nearly 12 per cent of the population of Delhi is Muslims which has been a stronghold of Congress however the AAP got 77 per cent Muslim votes in 2015 Vidhan Sabha polls. According to earlier data, in 2014 Lok Sabha elections AAP got 56 per cent of Muslim votes followed by 39 per cent Congress and 2 per cent BJP. Before 2014 also the available data showed that in Delhi the BJP has little base in terms of the Muslim votes but the Congress was the strongest.
In this Lok Sabha elections in the ground, the leaders felt that there is a major sentiment among Muslims that the anti-BJP vote in Delhi should not be divided hence the community voiced for an alliance. Talking to Millennium Post, chairman of Delhi Waqf Board Amanatullah Khan said, "The Muslims in Delhi was a strong base for the Congress but now the entire community is with us. The party in the ground is working to 80 per cent votes." Khan who is also an MLA of AAP from Okhla explained that the Muslims of Delhi has been the direct beneficiary of the development works of the AAP government which made the voters confident toward voting the party. "After coming to power the AAP has never taken any step which discriminates the religious minorities or the caste minorities. A large section of Dalits are also with the AAP and the Muslims have already been major voters of the AAP," Khan said.
He also said that in the ground as there was a sentiment of alliance between the Muslims, the party found
that nearly 60 per cent vote would be with AAP in today's condition. "The way we have started working alone I believe that by the end of the campaigns we would be able
to get the other 20 per cent of the Muslim vote because
nearly 10 per cent Muslim vote would go the Congress,"
said Khan.
Meanwhile, the Sikhs,
4 per cent of Delhi's population, also rallied behind AAP — 57 per cent in the 2015 assembly elections earlier this Sikhs were also a stronghold of the Congress.
