Nagpur, Oct. 19: Imtiyaz Jaleel is the newly elected face of a party seen as a radical outfit.

The television news reporter who quit journalism earlier this year to enter electoral politics today won from Aurangabad Central constituency, defeating his rival from the Shiv Sena but creating ripples in the Congress.

The All India Majlis-e- Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), which had fielded Jaleel from a constituency with large Muslim and Dalit populations, has won its first Assembly seat in Maharashtra and sent out a signal to the minority community that it is an alternative to the Congress.

The MIM, contesting the Assembly polls in Maharashtra seriously for the first time, has won two seats, the second from Byculla in Mumbai. It has finished second in at least six of the 24 constituencies it contested.

Jaleel could not be reached for comment but an MIM sympathiser, Abu Baker Rahber, said from Aurangabad that Muslims and Dalits had voted for Jaleel in large numbers. The MIM had an alliance with the Dalit Panthers, which has a strong support base among the Dalits in Aurangabad.

The results suggest that if the MIM expands its base in Maharashtra as expected, it will significantly eat into the Congress’s vote share.

The MIM polled about 4.8 lakh votes in the seats it contested, a little less than one per cent of the total votes in the state, having contested eight per cent of its seats.

In Byculla, party candidate Waris Yusuf Pathan polled over 25,000 votes, defeating the BJP’s Madhu Chavan by more than 1,000 votes. The Congress came third, with around 22,000 votes.

In Aurangabad, Jaleel polled over 61,000 votes. The Sena came second with over 41,000 votes and the BJP was third with about 40,000.

The BJP-Sena split, which was expected to help the Congress, benefited the MIM. The Congress polled barely 11,000 votes and finished fourth, an indication that it had lost Muslim and Dalit votes in the constituency.

In Solapur, the MIM’s Sheikh Toufiq Ismail finished second to Praniti Shinde, the Congress’s sitting MLA and daughter of former home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde. But Praniti’s victory margin was small, just 6,000 votes.

Aurangabad East saw sitting Congress legislator Rajendra Darda, education minister in the last government, slide into the third spot. The MIM’s Abdul Gaffar Quadri finished second, losing by a slender margin of 4,000 votes to the BJP’s Atul Save.

The MIM had sprung a surprise in 2011 when it won seven seats in the Nanded Municipal Corporation — former chief minister Ashok Chavan’s home turf.

In Nanded South, the MIM’s Moin Mukhtar polled over 34,000 votes and finished third, behind the Sena and the BJP. The Congress, which held the seat, came fourth.

The MIM’s emergence is bad news for the Congress, which has been progressively losing the support of a large section of Dalits, particularly the neo-Buddhists, to the BSP and a chunk of the OBC vote to the Shiv Sena and the BJP.