A rare seat with a four-way contest

The densely populated, riot-scarred assembly constituency of Mustafabad in northeast Delhi, is set to witness one of the most unique electoral battles of the 2025 assembly elections.

- Hemani Bhandari

Unlike the straightforward two-way fight between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dominating most of the Capital, Mustafabad stands apart—a fractured battlefield hosting a veteran, a fresh-faced newcomer, a political scion, and a controversial undertrial.

The BJP is fielding Mohan Singh Bisht, the sitting MLA from adjacent Karawal Nagar, the AAP Adil Ahmad Khan, a journalist-turned-politician who has been with the party since the Anna Hazare movement, the Congress Ali Mehdi, the son of popular ex-MLA Hasan Mehdi who held the seat from 2008 to 2016, and the AIMIM Tahir Hussain, who is incarcerated for his alleged role in the 2020 riots.

The stakes here are uniquely high, not just for the four parties vying for power but for residents who continue to grapple with crumbling infrastructure, economic instability, and memories of the 2020 communal riots.

Voter profile

The constituency of Mustafabad was carved out in 2008, and according to locals and political parties, it has a roughly 40% Muslim population. The constituency mostly comprises low-income and middle-class families, who are primarily engaged in running factories, shops, businesses and labour work.

There are 262,642 voters in the constituency and in the past two elections, the seat was won by AAP's Haji Yunus in 2020 and BJP's Jagdish Pradhan in 2015. Before that, Congress's Hasan Ahmad won it twice in a row.