The election opens the war gate passage for the political parties especially in terms of influencing their voters. Onset of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, wooing the Muslim voters triggers and also announcing various welfare schemes for them. But in reality do these schemes actually benefit them? Undoubtedly, only a single aspect that benefits them is the slowly adding on Muslim candidates in the list of political parties – also Muslim representative in the legislative assembly will increase. Muslims neither want to become the puppets nor the vote banks for the political parties – now this truth is slowly being gulped by the politicians and their respective parties. As a result, it has become a compulsion for the political parties to give more and more tickets to the Muslims with wooing promises. All the parties are putting all their efforts to placate approximately 20 percent of the masses in the state. There are around 144 constituencies with good ratio of Muslim voters. For the 16th assembly elections Muslim votes would be an essential factor for the success of Samajwadi and Congress party. In the districts like Rampur, Muradabad, Bijnaur, Saharanpur, Barely, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bahraich, balrampur, Siddharthnagar, Jyotiba Phule Nagar, Shraswati, Baghpat, Badayu, Gaziabaad, Lucknow, Bulandshahar, Varanasi, Aligarh, Philibhit the muslim voters may play an pivotal role. While there population in these areas is likely 20 to 49 percent.
Any party gathering even 30 percent of the Muslim vote would taste icing on its cake and this is the only reason behind the three major political parties in the state have distributed tickets with open hands to Muslim candidates. BSP 85, SP 78 and Congress 58 have fielded Muslim candidates. In the year 1977, Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly had 49 muslim MLA`s. while in 1993 the count reduced to 25 MLA`s, but in the year 2002 it increased to 47 and in 2007 it reached 56 muslim MLA`s. In the present assembly elections there are 222 Muslim candidates while in 2007 only 174 Muslim candidates were there.
No. of Muslim MLA`s in Legislative Assembly
| YEAR | STRENGTH |
| 1977 | 49 |
| 1980 | 47 |
| 1985 | 49 |
| 1989 | 38 |
| 1993 | 25 |
| 1996 | 33 |
| 2002 | 47 |
| 2007 | 56 |
Muslim MLA`s from Various parties in the year 2007
| BSP | 28 |
| SP | 22 |
| RLD | 03 |
| Others | 03 |
Muslim Candidates of 4 Major Political Parties in 2012
| BSP | 85 |
| SP | 78 |
| Congress | 58 |
| BJP | 01 |
The importance of Muslim vote gradually increased from the year 1989. In this year 38 muslim MLA`s won – among which 10 MLA`s were from Congress. In the year 1993 it was 25 muslim MLA`s and it only had one MLA from Congress. Other parties in 1996 also started considering Muslim candidates and 33 of them won, it included 19 MLA`s from Samajwadi Party. Whereas, 8 from BSP and 3 from Congress had won. In 2002 47 Muslim candidates won – included 23 from SP, 14 from BSP and 4 from Congress. In 2007 it increased to 56 consisting 28 from BSP, 22 from SP, RLD 3 marking their presence in legislative assembly. Two candidates from independent parties and one from UPDF were able to enter the legislative assembly.
The Muslims should also understand that if they do not increase their participation in politics then every time they have to depend on some or the other political parties for their welfare. They should realize their power to vote.
