A defeated NDP candidate in the Oct. 14 federal election says his fellow Muslims are blaming him for the Conservative candidate's victory in his Toronto-area riding.
Mustafa Rizvi, 28, says he's being accused of splitting the Muslim vote and thereby costing another Muslim candidate the riding of Mississauga Erindale.
"I feel like I am being discriminated against by my own community," Rizvi told CBC News on Thursday.
Rizvi said he never expected such an occurrence when he won the NDP nomination in the riding.
But leading up to the election and since, Rizvi says he has been labelled a traitor to his community in e-mails, phone calls and even to his face.
Rizvi says people call him "the guy who divided our community vote ... 'Because of him today we don't have a Muslim representative in Ottawa' and that wasn't even my concern to run. I was running as a free Canadian."
The Liberal incumbent going into the election was Omar Alghabra.
Rizvi finished third, with nearly 5,000 votes. Alghabra lost to Conservative Bob Dechert by 239 votes.
Issam Alyamami, a community volunteer in Mississauga, says this analysis is faulty and it's wrong to blame Rizvi.
"The Muslim community is not a homogeneous community. They vote like any other individuals in Canada based on their social status and value system," he said.
Local radio host Yudveer Jaswal agrees and says most of his listeners have moved past whether a Muslim candidate represents them in Ottawa.
"They're focusing more on the economy, focusing more on foreign policies, focusing more on health care, focusing more on infrastructure," he said.
Rizvi says this experience hasn't soured his political ambitions. He already gearing up for the next election.
