Congress turns to its biggest Telangana Muslim face to reverse the 2018 exodus of community

Having started his political career from student politics, first as part of the NSUI in the late 1970s and then the Youth Congress, Shabbir won his first Assembly poll from Kamareddy in 1989. Four years later, as part of the Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy-led Andhra Pradesh government, Shabbir set up a Minorities Welfare Department , becoming among the first to held a Minorities Welfare Ministry s in the country.

“For the first time in the history of any state, an amount of Rs 2 crore was earmarked in the annual budget of 1993-94 under the head ‘Welfare of Minorities’. Many other states emulated this model later, and a dedicated Minority Welfare Department was created at the national level in 2006,” he says.

Later, Shabbir was instrumental in the Andhra Pradesh government’s decision to include Muslims and 14 other castes under backward classes category and was also instrumental in providing 4% reservations to socially and educationally backward Muslims for education and employment in state institutions, which remains in place. Under Shabbir’s leadership, the Minority Welfare Department established the Christian Minority Finance Corporation.

In the 2018 Assembly elections, the BRS — then known as TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samithi) — won all the 40 seats with at least 10% Muslim population among the total 119 constituencies in the state. Sources in the BRS calculate that the party cornered 75% of the Muslim votes, with AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi’s support for the party and appeal to Muslims to support it coming as a boost. The KCR government’s welfare schemes benefiting the minorities also helped the party.

Against the BRS tally of 88 seats in the 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress had won only 19.

Telegana Congress vice-president M Ravi said they were banking on Shabbir as the most visible Muslim leader in the party with a deep understanding of issues concerning minorities, and hence he was chosen to lead the committee to prepare a Minorities Declaration.

Shabbir says he is taking feedback from Muslim and Christian religious organisations, as well as professionals, managements of minority institutions, to prepare the declaration. “We want to include as many benefits as we can for the minorities, to rival the BRS,’’ says the 66-year-old.

Acknowledging the challenge he faces, particularly given the BRS-AIMIM tie-up, he says: “Apart from the Minorities Declaration, we are reaching out to them through door-to-door campaigns. The assurances and benefits we will give to the minorities will be implementable schemes, and we are reiterating the same to voters.”