I lost because of rebels: Imtiaz Jaleel

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen candidate from Aurangabad East Assembly Imtiaz Jaleel said that he lost elections because of rebel and dummy candidates who divided votes.

He was leading strongly from the start of the counting of votes in the morning up to round 20 rounds in the afternoon. He had to face defeat by a small margin of 2161 votes from BJP candidate Atul Save in the last few rounds.

He lashed out at the Muslim candidates for the division of votes in the constituency and divided votes. He said, 'We cannot fight the traitors present in our ranks, we lost because of them, but I will not sit silent.'

Jaleel alleged that it is unfortunate that today politics has become a business of earning money.

“The Muslim candidates who tried their best to defeat them sold their integrity for a penny. Will these people be able to sleep peacefully after the defeat of Imtiaz Jaleel and Naseer Siddiqui (candidate of Aurangabad Central Constituency,” he said.

Jaleel said that besides the Muslim community, voters from other castes and religions also gave him around 15,000 votes. “If 15 Muslim candidates had not contested, I would have won by 13,000 votes. In democracy, everyone has the right to contest elections, but one candidate is getting 90,000 votes while the other candidate is getting only 200 votes. Their every vote became a river and resulted in our defeat,” he added.