The All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) on Wednesday won three seats in the civic bodies elections in Madhya Pradesh, taking its overall tally in the local polls held earlier this month in the state to seven.
In the first phase of the local polls held on July 6, the Asaduddin Owaisi-led party had emerged victorious on four seats, while in the second phase of these elections conducted on July 13, the counting of votes for which is currently underway, it won three seats so far, officials said. The Hyderabad-headquartered party won these three seats in the Khargone Municipal Council (KMC).
This is for the first time that the AIMIM contested civic body polls in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Madhya Pradesh.
On Wednesday, AIMIM’s Aruna Bai registered a victory from ward number 2 of KMC by defeating her nearest rival and BJP candidate Sunita Devi by a margin of 31 votes.
Aruna Bai, who belongs to the Scheduled Caste (SC) community, said she had joined the AIMIM as she was influenced by Asaduddin Owaisi’s views as he spoke about following the principles of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.
Two other winners from the AIMIM are Shakeel Khan from ward 15 and Shabnam from ward 27 in KMC.
The BJP won 18 seats in KMC, the Congress three and independent candidates eight.
In the counting of votes held on Sunday for the first phase of polls, the AIMIM had won four seats of corporators – two in Jabalpur and one each in Burhanpur and Khandwa.
Owaisi had addressed public meetings in Khandwa, Bhopal and Jabalpur to campaign for his party’s candidates for the polls held earlier this month.
The local body elections in MP for 413 municipal bodies, including 16 municipal corporations, 99 municipal councils and 298 Nagar Parishads, were held in two phases – on July 6 and 13.
