Yakutpura constituency Difficult for Oppn to free itself from MIM clutches

Hyderabad: The Yakutpura Assembly constituency has been considered by many political pundits and locals alike as a fight between the AIMIM and rebel outfit the MBT. However, all the contenders of opposition parties failed to grab the seat from MIM, which has been retaining stronghold since 1967. The segment was the bastion of Mumtaz Ahmed Khan since1994 elections and was replaced by Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri by the party in 2018 and won the seat.

The Yakutpura constituency in the undivided Hyderabad district was also an MIM fortress. The party is winning the seat with the majority of votes for decades. In 2018, the candidate Pasha Quadri secured a comfortable victory with majority over 69,595 (49.7 percent) polled votes. His opponents fared poorly with 22,617 (15.95 percent) and 21,222 (14.96 percent) votes of second and third contenders. This MIM stronghold is likely to stay with the party in upcoming elections.

The Congress has no major place in the constituency, while, BJP’s Ch Roop Raj remained the same for last two terms and stood at second and third place and now is an aspiring ticket again for upcoming elections.

MBT’s Majeedullah Khan who is the rival party of MIM standing third position with 11 percent and 19 percent of votes. The BRS chose Shabbir Ali in 2014 and for 2018 and 2023 elections the State ruling party selected Sama Sunder Reddy as a friendly contest with MIM. A group of local Muslim Congress leaders feel that their party leadership is not doing enough to put up a fight against the dominant MIM, which holds sway in the Old City. In the 2014 elections, the ruling BRS, Congress and the MIM contested individually, while the TDP and BJP had an alliance. Back then, many erstwhile Congress leaders, who were on good terms with the MIM leadership, ensured they had support or minority votes through an unofficial understanding.

This however changed when the MIM, which maintained a ‘friendly’ term with the BRS, supported the latter and did not contest in seats across the State in the 2018 State polls unlike in 2014.

The MBT Majeedullah Khan, who is also the president of the party. The leader has been alleging each time that the constituency has a huge number of bogus votes and despite several complaints to the Election Commission the list was not properly verified.

Yakutpura is traditionally a part of Old city, this locality derives its name from ‘Yakut’, a Persian word means the precious stone ‘Ruby.’ The constituency has over 3.34 lakh voters.