Dumb logic: AIMIM’s Imitaz Jaleel hits back as Supriya Shrinate says VBA and Owaisi’s party put 6 seats in BJP’s kitty

The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader and former MP Imitaz Jaleel on Friday hit-back at Congress leader Supriya Shrinate for accusing the former's party of being Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) troubleshooter in Maharashtra.

Supriya Shrinate claimed that because of Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) and Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM, six seats went into BJP's kitty.

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Sharing a list of six seats – Akola, Aurangabad, Buldhana, Hatkanangale, Mumbai North West and Palghar – Shrinate said that on these seats, VBA and AIMIM got more votes than the margin of victory. In a post on X, she accused both the parties of converting the victory of Congress on one and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) on five seats into defeat.

“Instead of 31, Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra would have won 37 seats out of 48 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP-led alliance would have been reduced to 11 seats and not 17,” Shrinate said.

The Congress leader also claimed that while Mayawati is the troubleshooter for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, in Maharashtra it is Prakash Ambedkar and Owaisi.

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Hitting back at Shrinate, AIMIM leader Imtiaz Jaleel said that he secured more votes compared to the INDIA alliance candidate with three parties – Congress, Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP).

“Madam, I was the sitting MP of Aurangabad. The INDIA alliance with 3 parties coming together secured 2,93,450 votes. I secured 3,41,480 votes. Using this dumb logic of yours, you have technically been my vote cutter,” said Jaleel.

The AIMIM leader also said that he would have happily campaigned for the INDIA alliance had they done justice to the Muslims of Maharashtra.

“You could've given 1 ticket to a Muslim,” Jaleel retorted.

In Aurangabad Constituency, Jaleel lost to Shiv Sena candidate Sandipanrao Bhumare by a margin of 1.34 lakh votes. Whereas, Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Chandrakant Khaire stood third. While Bhumare got 4.76 lakh votes, Jaleel received 3.41 lakh votes and Khaire polled 2.93 lakh votes.

In 2019, Jaleel won the seat as VBA and AIMIM alliance candidate.

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In Akola, Prakash Ambedkar, the VBA chief and former Lok Sabha MP stood third as BJP candidate Anup Dhotre won the seat by 40,000 votes. Congress nominee Abhay Kashinath Patil stood second.

In the recently held Lok Sabha elections, Congress emerged as the largest party with 13 seats, followed by Shiv Sena (UBT) and BJP getting 9 seats each. NCP (SP) won 8 seats, Shiv Sena (Shinde) 7 seats and NCP(Ajit Pawar) won one seat. In Sangli, Vishal Patil, who contested as an independent candidate, emerged as the winner.