Raipur. Former Chhattisgarh Law Minister Mohammad Akbar had won from the state’s Kawardha Assembly seat in 2018 by a record vote of 59,284, which is the largest margin of victory. This time he lost to BJP’s Vijay Sharma by 39,592 votes. He has expressed doubts about EVMs. He says that there is a lot of uproar regarding EVMs in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. He also said, if we raise the issue now, people will question us about the victory of Telangana. During this, he has challenged the allegations made by BJP regarding the settlement of Rohingya Muslims in Kawardha, calling them false.
He said that, in the review meeting with the party high command in Delhi, my colleagues raised the issue of EVM and discussion started on it. We can demand bringing back the ballot papers for the Lok Sabha elections. We also discussed in detail our manifesto and the work done by our government. The leadership has asked us to focus on the Lok Sabha elections. He said that right now he is waiting for the stand of his party leaders on EVMs. Communal politics does not work in the constituency.
He said, I do not want to blame anyone for the defeat. I secured the fourth highest number of votes in the state. This time he got 1.05 lakh votes (in 2018, Akbar got 1.36 lakh votes, while the BJP candidate got 77,000 votes). He also said, in future I will try to explain to the voters that their priorities while voting should be development and brotherhood.
There are allegations of Rohingya Muslims settling in his constituency. To which he said this is just politics. Ask those who are making this allegation to show even one Rohingya Muslim in Kawardha.
This time Congress was expected to get 60-75 seats from Chhattisgarh, but the party was limited to 35 seats. He said that I could not believe that we lost. For the first time, all exit poll predictions for Chhattisgarh turned out to be wrong. There are many reasons for the loss. Our government did many good things like farm loan waiver, universal ration card and paddy procurement, which were the highest in India. Apart from this, our manifesto was better than that of BJP. However they still won. Let’s see if they keep their promises, especially the promise of purchasing up to 21 quintals of paddy at Rs 3100 per quintal.
Be it Saja or Kawardha, BJP carried forward the agenda of Hindutva. It has been alleged that Congress practices appeasement politics. He said, they resort to this false story to win the elections and the same happened this time too.
When asked whether it was a conscious decision of the Congress to remain silent despite BJP leaders using the communal card against you during the campaign, Akbar said, it is better not to react to them. I will not change my style of politics, which is secular. I am confident about my work and do not believe that communal politics will become an issue. After Patan, there was a lot of development in Kawardha. Ultimately it is the people who decide which issue should be given priority.
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