Union Home Minister Amit Shah, on Sunday, vowed to end the Muslim reservations in Telangana if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) forms government. Shah’s visit to the state is seen as the beginning of the party’s campaign for the forthcoming assembly elections in Telangana, scheduled to be held in November or December this year.
Addressing the BJP’s ‘Vijaya Sankalpa Sabha’ rally at Chevella near Hyderabad, Shah slammed religion-based reservations, terming them “unconstitutional”.
Shah said the party will end the unconstitutional 4 per cent Muslim reservation if it comes to power in Telangana, offering the right to Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and other backward communities. “This right belongs to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBC,” Shah said. Muslims categorised as backward are offered four percent reservation in Telangana.
Ahead of the Karnataka Assembly polls, the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government had scrapped the nearly three-decade-old four per cent reservation for Muslims in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category and divided it equally among the Lingayats and Vokkaligas, two dominant land-owning communities in the State, at 2% each.
The BJP has argued that the OBC quota for Muslims was unconstitutional because reservation based on religion is not allowed. But, according to experts, this argument is legally dubious, as Muslims are provided reservation due to their social backwardness and not their religion.
In several states, Muslim sub-castes that are “socially and educationally backward”, as defined by the Mandal Commission, are included under the OBC category on the recommendation of the respective state backward classes commission.
The BJP will push to end OBC quota for Muslims in the expectation that it will yield political gains, the experts said. Sidelining Muslims will appease the party’s Hindutva constituency and will help in wooing politically influential groups ahead of the polls.
But the road ahead for the party is not smooth either. Last year, Hindutva supporters accused the BJP of not backing Raja Singh, a legislator from the Goshamahal Assembly constituency. However, his office stands suspended currently due to his utterances against Prophet Muhammad in 2019.
Raja Singh, who doesn’t get along with many Telangana BJP leaders, made derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad and also ‘made a joke’ about Muslim women being raped in Gujarat in 2002.
He was arrested by the Hyderabad Police and charged under the Preventive Detention (PD) Act. He is currently out on bail.
The BJP in Telangana stands divided on whether to back Raja Singh or remain silent on the issue. Having suspended Raja Singh, the BJP is being accused of not backing him by a section of Hindutva supporters.
Nalin Kumar, a supporter of Raja Singh, wrote on social media, “They are not standing by Raja Singh because he has his own following and doesn’t carry slippers of central leaders.”
This was an apparent dig at Telangana BJP chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar, whose video carrying Amit Shah’s slippers had gone viral last year.
The case against Raja Singh has put the Telangana BJP in a spot as it comes at a time when the party is trying to emerge as the main challenger to the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) in the state and is pulling out all stops to win the assembly elections.
Meanwhile, with an eye on the elections, even the Congress has adopted the BJP’s Hindutva ideology. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee Chief Revanth Reddy announced that his party would build 100 temples for God Sri Ram with Rs 1,000 crore if voted to power.
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who is known for his conspicuous Hindu practices like organising giant yagnas and grand redevelopment of Yadadri Sri Narasimha Swamy temple, has also taken up the redevelopment of Kondagattu Hanuman temple.