Senior AAP leader and two-time MLA Amanatullah Khan has taken a massive lead of over 4,000 votes after trailing initially to BJP's Manish Chaudhary in his Okhla bastion, show Election Commission trends. Even though several rounds of counting are left, the close fight indicates that the Congress might have eaten into the AAP's vote share in the Muslim-majority Okhla constituency.
Since 1993, no non-Muslim has become the MLA of the South East Delhi constituency. The Okhla constituency has about 60% Muslim population.
Apart from Chaudhary, Amanatullah Khan was up against All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen's (AIMIM) Shifa Ur Rehman and Congress's Ariba Khan.
Amanatullah Khan, who rose to prominence during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Shaheen Bagh, has been winning the Okhla seat since 2015. Even though he lost the 2013 polls in Okhla, where he contested on a Lok Jan Shakti Party ticket, Khan defeated BJP's Braham Singh by 60,000 votes in the 2015 polls.
Amanatullah Khan's victory in the 2020 Delhi Assembly polls was even more impressive, with the AAP leader securing 1.3 lakh of the 1.9 lakh votes cast in the Okhla seat.
Okhla, one of Delhi's oldest inhabited regions along the banks of the Yamuna, saw a voter turnout of 54.96 per cent.
