1 Muslim MLA in new Gujarat House, down from 3 in previous Assembly

The Muslim community makes up 9.67 per cent of Gujarat’s population. There were three Muslim MLAs, all from the Congress, in the 14th Gujarat Assembly.

The lack of representation of Muslims in the legislatures is not limited to Gujarat or just the BJP-ruled states.

Currently, there are 26 Muslims among the total 543 MPs in the Lok Sabha — making their representation 4.78 per cent, against 14.7 per cent share in the country’s population.

In the Lok Sabha, the highest representation of Muslim MPs is from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), which has five Muslim MPs, followed by the Congress, at 4.The BJP does not have any Muslim MP.

The representation of Muslims in the Legislative Assemblies is slightly better with 233 MLAs in all across states, accounting for 5.78 per cent of the total 4,029 Legislative Assembly seats in the country. The highest number of Muslim MLAs are from the Congress, which has 54 MLAs, followed by the TMC with 43, and the Samajwadi Party (SP) with 31. The BJP does not have any Muslim MLA.

Muslim MLAs/MPs/MLCs across various parties

The last Muslim MLA from the BJP in recent years was Aminul Haque Laskar, who won from the Sonai seat in Assam in the 2016 Assembly elections. He failed to retain his seat in the 2021 polls.

The BJP fares better when it comes to giving representation to the Muslim community in the Legislative Councils. Six states in India, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, have Legislative Councils, which together account for 426 seats. Of these, 27 are Muslim, or 6.33 per cent of the total.

The BJP and the Congress have the highest number of Muslim MLCs, with four each. The BJP MLCs are Shahnawaz Hussain from Bihar and Danish Azad Ansari, Bukkal Nawab and Mohsin Raza from Uttar Pradesh.