The first meeting of the party’s ‘Minorities Declaration Committee’ held here Monday laid out a plan to reach out to various groups, collect suggestions and compile them into a declaration, with its salient points to be included in the Congress manifesto for the state polls.
The Minorities Declaration Committee of the party is chaired by senior Congress leader and former minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir, and Monday’s meeting was attended by AICC state in-charge Manikrao Thakre and secretary Mansoor Ali Khan.
Ali said that over discussions lasting nearly three hours, the ground was laid to hold interactions with Muslim and Christian religious organisations, professionals and civil society members belonging to the two communities, managements of minority institutions and other stakeholders.
The draft declaration that results from these talks is expected to be ready by month-end, and will be unveiled by top leaders of the AICC, Ali said.
Soon, Congress groups and sub-groups will start meeting the various stakeholders and minority leaders in different districts. A special desk would be set up at the party office to receive representations from groups as well as individuals.
Muslims comprise about 13% of the voters in the state and Christians 1%.
The BRS, which has an understanding with the AIMIM which will fetch it Muslim votes in many constituencies, also announced sops for Muslims and Christians recently. On July 23, the K Chandrashekar Rao-led state government announced extension of a one-time economic support scheme entailing Rs 1 lakh to a member of a backward class family, to Muslims and Christians. The distribution of the cheques is likely to begin soon. Besides, under the Shadi Mubarak scheme, the KCR government has already started giving Rs 1,00,116 to eligible Muslim brides.
The Congress’s promises include scholarships, loans, housing etc for minorities.
In an admission of the position the Telangana Congress finds itself in, Ali said recently that nearly 75% of the Muslim vote in the state was now with the BRS, and that the Congress needed some concrete measures to win back their confidence.
The Muslim vote is also crucial for the Congress as the BJP is already chipping away at its other support base in the state, and has emerged as the main opposition in several recent poll contests. BJP leaders like former state unit chief Bandi Sanjay Reddy have accused the BRS of “appeasement politics”, with an eye on rallying the Hindus behind the BJP. The party has also been targeting the BRS over its alliance with the AIMIM, has raised the issue of Nizam’s rule to target the minorities, and promised to change Hyderabad’s name to Bhagyanagar if it comes to power.
After Monday’s meeting, Thakre said that the 4% Muslim reservation and other welfare schemes introduced by the previous Congress regime in united Andhra Pradesh had benefited over 20 lakh poor Muslim families since 2005-06. However, he said, this had come to a halt after the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (now the BRS) came to power in 2014.
Ali accused KCR of neglecting minorities’ welfare, depriving them of funds, and erasing representation of minorities in all government bodies “as part of a larger conspiracy”. While there were six Muslim MLCs during the Congress regime, this was down to 1 now, he said.
Similarly, he said, not one of the 11 vice-chancellors of state universities was a Muslim, and the community had no representation in the Telangana State Public Service Commission, Ali said.
The members of the Minorities Declaration Committee include Telangana PCC senior vice-president Zafar Javeed, working president Mohammed Azharuddin, Minorities Department Chairman Shaik Abdullah Sohail, Azmathullah Hussaini, Obedullah Kothwal, Deepak John, Uzma Shakir, Prof M D Riyaz, Mohammed Faheem Qureshi, Khusro Pasha Biyabani, Ezekiel Birdudugadda and Rashed Khan. They were present at Monday’s meeting.
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