Telangana Congress leaders question KCR silence on Shah’s vow to scrap Muslim quota

Syed Nizamuddin and Mateen Shareef, two other Congress leaders, also raised the same question.

Addressing a public meeting at Tukkuguda on the outskirts of Hyderabad on May 14, the last day of party state chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar’s Praja Sangram Yatra, Shah said the BJP was not in favour of religion-based reservation and would remove the Muslim quota if it formed the next government in Telangana.

Stating that the Muslim quota was eating into the reservation meant for other marginalised communities, Shah said a BJP government would extend the benefits to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. At present, out of the 50 per cent reservation in the state, 25 per cent is for Backward Classes, 15 per cent for SCs, six per cent for STs and four per cent for Muslims.

Shabbir said that KCR came to power in the 2014 elections on the promise of giving 12 per cent reservation in jobs and education to Muslims within four months. However, this promise remains unimplemented even after eight years, he said.

“While CM KCR and other TRS leaders have stopped talking about the 12 per cent Muslim quota, they seem to have joined a conspiracy to end the 4 per cent Muslim reservation. If we look at the chronology, the TRS government denied representation to Muslims in important bodies like the Telangana State Public Service Commission, vice-chancellors of universities, etc. It stopped the fee reimbursement, which led to the closure of over 70 per cent of minority-run engineering and other professional colleges. Denial or delay in the release of scholarships forced lakhs of minority students to discontinue their higher studies. Now the TRS-BJP seems to have hatched a conspiracy to end the four per cent Muslim quota,” he said.

“Even five days after Union Home Minister Amit Shah threatened to end the Muslim quota, CM KCR has not reacted to the statement. “KCR’s silence for so long has sent a clear message that the TRS government would not defend the four per cent Muslim quota,” he said while reminding that it was a Congress government that implemented the Muslim reservation in 2004-05 and fought a long legal battle to protect it. The four per cent Muslim quota, still in force in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh thanks to a Supreme Court order issued in March 2010, has benefited nearly 20 lakh socially and economically backward Muslims categorised as BC-E, he added.

Shabbir demanded that KCR clarify his stand on the continuance of the four per cent reservation. He feared the TRS government might not fight the case in the Supreme Court to continue the quota. However, he said the Congress would never allow the TRS and BJP to sabotage the Muslim quota under any circumstances.

“Both the TRS and the AIMIM are allies in Telangana. But strangely, AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi did not question KCR’s silence on Amit Shah’s threat. This indicates that the MIM is supporting the moves of the TRS and the BJP to end the Muslim reservation,” he alleged.