New Delhi: The recently concluded Delhi Assembly Election has not only thrown surprises by voting out the incumbency but the eighth Delhi Assembly will see a shift in the gender and religion of the legislators.
This time, the number of Muslim and women MLAs has decreased while the representation of Sikh MLAs has increased. Four of BJP's 48 MLAs are Sikh — Punardeep Singh Sahni from Chandni Chowk, Manjinder Singh Sirsa from Rajouri Garden, Tarvinder Singh Marwah from Jangpura, Arvinder Singh Lovely from Gandhi Nagar — while AAP's Jarnail Singh has won from Tilak Nagar for the third time.
Staging a poor show, only five women have been elected to the House — AAP's Atishi from Kalkaji, BJP's Rekha Gupta from Shalimar Bagh, BJP's Neelam Pehalwan from Najafgarh, BJP's Shikha Roy from Greater Kailash and BJP's Poonam Sharma from Wazirpur.
In the 2020 assembly election, seven women — Rakhi Birlan from Mangolpuri, Vandana Kumari from Shalimar, Preeti Tomar from Trinagar, Dhanwati Chandela from Rajouri Garden, Rajkumari Dhillon from Hari Nagar, Bhavana Gaur from Palam and Atishi from Kalkaji — made it to the assembly.
However, the smaller number of women legislators doesn't mean their respective parties fielded less number of them in this election. Most of the women candidates of AAP conceded defeat while BJP's Priyanka Gautam had to bite the dust from the Kondli constituency.
The incumbent women MLAs — Rakhi Birlan from Madipur, Vandana Kumari from Shalimar Bagh, Preeti Tomar from Trinagar and Dhanwanti Chandela from Rajouri Garden — lost in this election.
Four Muslim candidates tasted victory as AAP's Muhammad Iqbal won from Matia Mahal, former cabinet minister Imran Hussain was elected from Ballimaran, AAP's Amanatullah Khan won from Okhla and AAP's Chaudhary Zubair Ahmed from Seelampur. BJP's Mohan Singh Bisht won from Mustafad.
The number of Muslim legislators was the same in the 2020 election. Shoaib Iqbal was elected from Matia Mahal, Imran Hussain from Ballimaran, Amanatullah Khan from Okhla, Abdul Rahman from Seelampur and Haji Yunus from Mustafabad.
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