BRS gives tickets to only 3 Muslims; internet says 'match-fixing with AIMIM'

Hyderabad: People are frowning over the underrepresentation of minorities in the recently-announced candidate list by BRS for 115 assembly segments in Telangana.

On Monday, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced candidates for 115 Assembly segments except for Goshamahal, Jangaon, Narsapur, and Nampally.

Activists and Twitter users remarked that in a state where Muslims consist of 12.5 % of the total population, only three from the community have been given election tickets, and that too, two of them have been pitted against the AIMIM party, which made their winning chances negligible.

It’s not only about the negligible representation of Muslim candidature, even from other communities such as Christians, Paris, and Sikhs, there have been almost no representation. The sole Christian candidate for the Alampur constituency V M Abraham has got a ticket as a Scheduled Caste candidate and not as a Christian.

Even among Hindus, primarily the Reddys and Velmas have been given most of the tickets and the representation is highly lopsided. 6.5 % Reddys secured 39 assembly tickets and 4.8 % Kammas got six seats, while Velmas got three percent seats. Schedule Castes (consisting of 17.50 %) were given 19 seats while 9.91 % of Schedule Tribes got 11 seats.

Three Muslim candidates include Ibrahim Lodhi for Charminar constituency, Ali Baqri for Bahadurpura, and the existing MLA of Bodhan Mohammed Shakeel Aamir.

“These are dummy candidates for helping their friendly party MIM,” remarked one user.

“They are all destined to lose as the Old City is reserved for MIM,” said another.

“For namesake, they have put some candidates in these areas so that nobody should directly link BRS with MIM,” wrote third.

Political activist from Hyderabad Md Imran said, “The chief minister has always praised ‘Gangi-Yamuni Tehzeeb’ or the fusion of Hindu-Muslim cultures in Telangana and had ensured that the state is largely peaceful during his 10-year reign, which is a big achievement of BRS with regards to the minorities. Despite that, representation from various minority communities and the underprivileged sections of the majority community is surprisingly low. For a population consisting of 12.5 % Muslims, at least 16 to 17 candidates should have got the election tickets. There are around 40 constituencies where there is a major sway of Muslims and there are over a dozen constituencies where the Muslim presence is considerable. Yet, only three tickets were given.”

“BRS just wants to field some dummy candidates against MIM so that nobody can point a finger at KCR about coalition with MIM. But despite what he claims, he is not so conducive to the representation of minorities and the underprivileged. There are several vacancies in Minority Commissions and other bodies. The money slated for minority development was not optimally used except for a couple of projects like the Shadi Mubarak scheme and minority residential schools, which again have many loopholes,” added Imran.

Calling the tickets to Muslim candidates of BRS just an eyewash, social and political activist Md. Mushtaq Mallick, president of Threek Muslim Shabban, said, “In the last one decade, BRS has hardly fulfilled their promises. The promise of a Dalit chief minister for Telangana was never fulfilled. Out of the three Muslims who got tickets, two of them from Charminar and Bahadurpura have no political background and they do not stand a chance of winning. Though MIM has also not done much development activities in the Old City and people are not too happy with them, they just want to control all Muslim institutes and the public do not have a strong alternative to vote. So, there is no powerful opposition to take over MIM or BRS and these two are collaborating under the surface and are indulged in a friendly contest. Parties like Congress and Muslim League seriously need to contest and field their candidates from Old City and other areas to challenge the MIM supremacy.”

However, the BRS candidates' list didn't come as a surprise to the Research director at the Centre for Development of Policy and Practice (CDPP) Amir Khan. According to him, any party would have given similar representation to Muslims if they already have a friendly tie up with MIM. "BRS is assured and convinced of support from seven MLAs of MIM. KCR doesn't want to disturb the equilibrium by fielding many other Muslim candidates from his party who might stand a chance to win. So from a rational and win-ability point of view, it is the right decision by any party. It would be irrational to field Muslim candidates anywhere in India where around 80% population is non-Muslim. In Telangana, we have 12.5 % Muslims, mostly concentrated in Hyderabad across seven constituencies."

"But what bothers me is the fact that elections have become extremely caste & religion dominated, going against the spirit of People's Representation Act. It has become explicitly palpable especially after rapid polarisation over the last decade. People don't vote for candidates depending on their leadership abilities and political acumen but solely on the basis of religion, community, upper and lower castes and sadly consider it a right thing to do," he said.