The election for the seventh Delhi Legislative Assembly is scheduled for February 5, 2025. As usual, it is a triangular contest between the three major parties-the ruling Aam Aadmi Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the Congress..
Delhi’s ruling has shifted between these three parties since the inception of the Delhi Legislative Assembly in 1952, when Congress’s Brahm Prakash became the first Chief Minister. It then passed to the BJP in 1993 after the Delhi Assembly was reinstated, with Madan Lal Khurana becoming the Chief Minister. It returned to Congress after the 1998 elections, with Sheila Dikshit becoming the Chief Minister. She was re-elected in 2003 and 2008 before the Aam Aadmi Party’s historic entry into Delhi politics in 2013.
However, this election is significant due to one factor—it is the first Assembly election after the Northeast Delhi pogrom, which took place in February 2020 following protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. More importantly, it is marked by the candidature of two activists who have been jailed under UAPA, accused of inciting violence during the protests against the CAA and of involvement in the pogrom.
According to data from the Election Commission, Delhi has 1.55 crore voters spread across its 70 constituencies. Among these, Muslim candidates are contesting from six-Okhla, Seelampur, Babarpur, Ballimaran, Matia Mahal, and Mustafabad. In the last Assembly election in 2020, the Aam Aadmi Party won all these seats
Okhla witnesses a contest between three Muslim candidates—incumbent MLA Amanatullah Khan of AAP, Indian National Congress’s Ariba Khan, and AIMIM debutant Shifa ur-Rehman. Shifa ur-Rehman, former president of the Jamia Millia Islamia Alumni Association, has been charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), accused of inciting violence during the Northeast Delhi pogrom. He was arrested on April 26, 2020, and has been serving as an undertrial prisoner in Tihar Jail since.
Rehman was a key figure in the protests held at Jamia Millia Islamia against the Citizenship Amendment Act, for which he is now jailed. He was granted custody parole for election campaigning, allowing him to step out of jail from 8:30 AM to 6 PM. His election expenses have been crowdfunded, with Rehman’s wife, Nooren Fatima, at the forefront of his campaign, along with AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Muslim student activist Safoora Zargar.
Amanatullah Khan, the current MLA of Okhla, has held this position since 2015, when he defeated Asif Mohammed Khan of Congress, the two-time MLA from Okhla. Prior to this, Amanatullah Khan had contested the Assembly elections in 2008 and 2013 as a Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) candidate. He has also served as the Chairman of the Delhi Waqf Board since 2020.
On September 2, 2024, he was arrested from his residence by the Enforcement Directorate on allegations of irregularities in appointments made to the Waqf Board. He was granted bail a month later, in November, after the court ruled that the prosecution sanction against him was illegal. In 2021, an FIR was filed against him for threatening Yati Narsinghanand, who had made derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad. Following this, a hate campaign was directed at Khan, with Hindutva activists like Pinky Chaudhary announcing a bounty for his head.
Congress has fielded Ariba Khan as their candidate in Okhla. She is the daughter of Asif Mohammed Khan, Amanatullah Khan’s predecessor.
Another constituency, Mustafabad, witnessed a triangular contest among Muslim candidates, with AAP’s Adil Ahmed Khan competing against INC’s Ali Mehdi and AIMIM’s Tahir Hussain. The constituency was carved out in 2008 and was the worst hit during the Northeast Delhi pogrom. Prior to 2008, it was part of Karawal Nagar, from where Kapil Mishra was elected on an AAP ticket in 2015, defeating Mohan Singh Bisht of BJP. In 2025, Mishra is contesting from Karawal Nagar, and Bisht is contesting from Mustafabad, both as BJP candidates.
AIMIM’s candidate from Mustafabad, Tahir Hussain, has been charged under UAPA along with Shifa ur Rehman, facing multiple accusations in connection with the Delhi pogrom case, while he was an AAP Municipal Councillor. He was also granted custody parole for election campaigning. His main opponent will be Adil Ahmed Khan of the Aam Aadmi Party, the party currently holding the constituency.
However, AAP has fielded Adil Ahmed Khan by dropping Haji Yunus, the current sitting MLA. He is among the 14 sitting MLAs dropped by AAP in this election. Congress’s candidate, Ali Mehdi, is the son of former MLA Hasan Mehdi, who represented Mustafabad from 2008 until 2015, when BJP won in the Muslim-majority constituency.
Seelampur is another Muslim-majority constituency that was badly affected during the 2020 pogrom. This year, it sees a contest between Zubair Ahmed from AAP and Abdul Rehman from INC. Zubair is the son of Mateen Ahmed, who was the MLA of Seelampur from 1993 to 2015, representing Janata Dal, Congress, and once as an independent candidate. He was defeated in 2020 by Congress’s Abdul Rehman, who is now contesting against Mateen Ahmed’s son. Mateen Ahmed had also joined AAP along with his son and daughter-in-law before the elections.
Meanwhile, Muhammed Ishraque, who represented Seelampur between 2015 and 2020 as a Congress MLA, is now representing his party from Babarpur, contesting against Gopal Rai, AAP’s two-time sitting MLA, who also serves as the Minister for Environment in the Delhi Cabinet.t.
Ballimaran, part of the Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha constituency, sees a direct fight between Congress veteran Haroon Yusuf and AAP’s sitting MLA Imran Hussain. Yusuf had represented the constituency since 1993 until he was defeated by Hussain in the 2015 Assembly elections, when he was pushed to third place. This was repeated in the 2020 election. Haroon Yusuf also served as the first elected chairman of the Delhi Waqf Board from 1999 to 2004.
Another constituency that is part of Chandni Chowk is Matia Mahal, where INC’s Asim Ahmed Khan is competing against AAP’s Aaley Mohammed Iqbal. Khan had previously represented the constituency in the Assembly in 2015 as an AAP member, while Mohammed Iqbal is the son of Shoaib Iqbal, who represented the constituency from 1993 to 2013 as a member of Janata Dal, Janata Dal (S), and Lok Janshakti Party, and again in 2020 as an AAP representative.
Even though all these constituencies unanimously voted for AAP in the previous election, their inefficiency in controlling the pogrom and aiding Hindutva tactics could be repaid by the Muslim voters in these constituencies. Through the candidature of Shifa ur Rehman and Tahir Hussain, the anti-CAA protests and the incarceration of Muslim political activists have been brought into the electoral discussion, also highlighting the incompetency and unwillingness of the current AAP government to resist attacks against its minority citizens.
