Congress' Imran Khedawala lone Muslim MLA in new Gujarat Assembly
Ahmedabad, Dec 9: Imran Khedawala of the Congress is the only Muslim candidate to be elected to the 182-member Gujarat Assembly in the just concluded polls, which saw the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win a landslide victory.
The outgoing Assembly had three Muslim legislators, all from the Congress.
Khedawala, the sitting Congress MLA from the Jamalpur-Khadia Assembly constituency in Ahmedabad city, won the election by a margin of 13,658 votes on Thursday to retain the seat.
He defeated his nearest rival, Bhushan Bhatt of the BJP, in the Muslim majority constituency, where state president of the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and former MLA Sabir Kabliwala was also in the fray.
The Congress had fielded six Muslim candidates, including three siting MLAs. Of these, five candidates, including two MLAs, lost.
In 2017, three of five candidates from the minority community fielded by the main Opposition party had emerged victorious. Muslims account for around 10 per cent of Gujarat's population.
Congress candidate and sitting MLA Gyasuddin Sheikh lost to BJP's Kaushik Jain in the Dariapur Assembly segment of Ahmedabad district. Another legislator of the Opposition party, Mohammed Javed Pirzada, faced defeat in Wankaner in Morbi district at the hands of the saffron outfit.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate took away 53,110 votes and contributed in the defeat of Pirzada.
In the Abdasa seat in Kutch district, Congress' Muslim candidate Jat Mamad Jung was defeated by a margin of around 9,000 votes by BJP nominee and former Congress MLA Pradhyumansinh Jadeja.
The AAP had fielded Muslim candidates on three Assembly seats - Jamalpur-Khadia, Dariapur and Jambusar - but none of them won.
The BJP did not field a single Muslim candidate, while 12 All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) nominees from the minority community were in the fray, but all of them were trounced. Two of these AIMIM candidates finished third in their respective constituency.
In the just concluded elections, the BJP won 156 seats, the highest by any party in Gujarat's history, while the Congress came a distant second with 17 seats. The AAP emerged victorious in five Assembly segments.
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Duleep Trophy: Pacers shine as India B beat India A by 76 runs
Bengaluru, Sep 8: KL Rahul's gumption, which helped him pile a patient fifty, found no resonance among his colleagues as India B pacers led by Yash Dayal pushed India A to a 76-run defeat on the fourth and final day of their Duleep Trophy match here on Sunday.
Chasing 275, India A were bundled out for 198 in their second innings as left-arm seamer Dayal (3/50), with able support from his colleagues Mukesh Kumar (2/50) and Navdeep Saini (2/41), led the India B attack.
Rahul top-scored for 'A' with a 51.
In the first session of the day, India B made 184 all out in their second essay to muster a handy overall lead of 274.
The India A chase began on a shaky note as Mayank Agarwal departed in the second over itself, wafting Dayal away from his body to Nitish Kumar Reddy, who made a wonderful diving catch at second slip.
That brought Riyan Parag to the middle and the right-hander followed the path set on Saturday by Rishabh Pant and Sarfaraz Khan.
Parag took on the bowlers and pacer Mukesh bore the brunt of his aggression, getting smoked for two sixes and the second maximum touched the roof of the Chinnaswamy Stadium over the mid-wicket region.
Parag added 48 runs for the second with a rather subdued Shubman Gill, who was dropped by Nitish Reddy at slips off Mukesh on 16, and 31 came off the former's bat in just 18 balls.
But the approach was tough to sustain considering the kind of assistance the bowlers were getting here, and soon his massive hoick off Dayal took an edge off Parag's bat en route to stumper Rishabh Pant.
Gill (21) departed soon, falling to Saini for the second time in the match and on this occasion, he edged the pacer to Pant.
Dhruv Jurel poked Dayal well outside off-stump to Yashasvi Jaiswal at gully, as India batters perished to a combination of bowlers' persistence on that channel and their own carelessness.
They took the lunch at a queasy 76 for four that soon transpired into 99 for six after the dismissal of Shivam Dube and Tanush Kotian, an hour into the lunch.
However, Rahul batted out 180 minutes 121 balls and milked 42 runs for the seventh wicket with Kuldeep Yadav to delay the inevitable.
The standout shot in an otherwise dour innings was a whistling on drive off Mukesh that fetched him a boundary.
But Mukesh had his revenge soon when Rahul feathered a cut off him to Pant, who completed five catches in this innings, soon after reaching his fifty with a single off Saini.
It effectively signalled the end of the road of for India A, though Akash Deep (43, 42b, 3x4, 4x6) gave a few moments of fun with a cavalier innings.
But beyond the entertainment value, it always was a case of when more than if.
Earlier, resuming from their overnight score of 150 for six India B could only 34 runs more to the total before getting bundled out.
Pacer Akash, whom Sarfaraz Khan carted around for five fours in a row the previous day, found his mojo to add the scalps of Washington Sundar and Saini to complete a five-wicket haul (5/56).
The spell will keep his name floating among the contenders when the selectors sit together soon to pick up squad for two-match Test series against Bangladesh.
